The Dance is not over
by Antony444
Summary: The Dance of the Dragons was the most devastating conflict Westeros had ever seen, one hundred and seventy years before the War of the Five Kings. In the end, a succession of deaths and betrayals allowed the kingdom to find peace and recover. But what if it had not happened? What if the courage of a young dragoness had pushed this war to be fought to the bitter end?
1. The King Falls Alone

**Chapter 1**

 **The King Falls Alone**

 **Ser Marston Waters**

"This was not supposed to happen like this!" Brayed Ser Alfred Broome.

A loud and significant roar of anger followed to echo the sentence.

"Look Marston! Look what this...this...this bitch is doing! We can't let her kill the King! Do something! Man the siege engines! Promise recompenses to the archers! Shoot her down! But save the King!"

Ser Marston Waters did his best to keep an unfeeling face, lest his true feelings show. It would not do at all for the new castellan of Dragonstone to believe Marston thought him an imbecile.

"The dragons are out of reach of our scorpions and our ballista, Ser Alfred." He replied instead, a touch of frost in his voice. "Should I dare to order the men to shoot, at this distance we have better chances to touch the King than his opponent. Sunfyre is a lot bigger than Moondancer. And the archers we have here may be good, but they can't shoot a dragon thousands of feet away."

"But the King...Damn this bitch!"

Ser Marston threw a new cold look at Ser Alfred before diverting his gaze and going back to his observation of the clash happening in the sky.

A new roar of anger came from Sunfyre and Marston grimaced. King Aegon II Targaryen had promised them titles, wealth and prestige at his court when victory would be his against his half-sister Rhaenyra. Though she was nicknamed these days 'Maegor with tits' according to the latest rumours coming from King's Landing.

The plan had appeared so simple. With the biggest dragons and Rhaenyra away, slay Ser Robert Quince the castle's castellan, kill every soldier who had undying loyalty to the Blacks, and welcome King Aegon II Targaryen with the splendour and regalia a dragonlord of his rank deserved. Simple, right?

A new roar sounded, and it was one of pain. It seemed an arrow had struck Sunfyre's already badly damaged wing from the Rook's Rest battle, making the golden beast lose a little altitude before batting his wings faster to close the distance with his smaller opponent.

"How did the girl learnt to use a bow?" Screamed Ser Alfred.

 _The same way everyone does_ , thought Marston, becoming more and more annoyed at the Broome knight the further the fight went on. Although for the Lady Baela Targaryen to learn to fly her dragon and be an elite archer at the age of fourteen was an impressive feat, one had to admit.

"The greens will have our heads..." Moaned the castellan of Dragonstone as another arrow struck the undamaged wing of Sunfyre, eliciting a long hiss of suffering from the King's mount.

 _No. They will have your head._

It had been Ser Alfred Broome orders that only three men had to be sent to arrest the daughter of Daemon Targaryen and Laena Velaryon. No danger, the Broome knight had affirmed. The girl would be captured easily. One dagger in the eye of the first man, one dagger cut to make the second an eunuch and a large push from the balcony to deal with the third had proven the folly of 'three men are enough'.

The young Lady had managed to reach the stables where her dragon was kept, a slim and magnificent pale green dragon with pearl-coloured horns, crests and wing bones, then fly away before the men of Alfred and Marston could do anything to stop her. Ser Albert had thought the young Targaryen had fled to the Vale or another Black stronghold.

Ser Albert had been deadly wrong. As King Aegon made a remarked entry on his bonded golden dragon, Lady Baela Targaryen and Moondancer had appeared over Dragonstone and attacked.

"That got to hurt!" Remarked a knight on Marston's left as Sunfyre received a new arrow in the middle of his damaged wing. The royal monster tried to seize the tail of its tormentor in a vicious bite, but the attempt failed and Moondancer manoeuvred around Aegon's dragon with celerity.

The now-traitor to the black cause grimaced. The combat was long, too long. Normally, Sunfyre should have battered a nuisance like Moondancer in less than time it took to say it. The dragon of King Aegon II was a battle-dragon, easily six or seven times the size of Moondancer. The leader of the greens had far more war experiences and dragonrider skills than the fourteen-year old girl.

The golden dragon and his royal cavalier should have crushed the young dragon and its equally young partner. It had not happened. As tempting as it was to blame it on Sunfyre's old injuries, Marston was clear-headed enough to think it was only one of the reasons of the golden dragon's failure. Moondancer was a young dragon, extremely nimble and swift, and Lady Baela was riding it with astonishing skill. It was the worst sort of opponent for the big and massive Sunfyre. And the King had not come prepared for battle. Aegon II had the sword Blackfyre on him and his back and green armour but nothing else. Baela had brought a bow, and profited from every evasion and miss of her draconic enemy to shoot an arrow with devastating precision in the wings.

But the biggest issue was that only one of the dragonriders fought with all his head, and it surely by the Seven Hells wasn't the King. At this distance, it was impossible of course to see the expression on the visages of Princess Baela and King Aegon, but the shouts coming out from the King's mouth and the deadly silence from his young cousin were enough indicators. Marston had never ridden a dragon and never was going to for all the gold of the Seven Kingdoms, but he had seen enough fights and battles to know that when someone lost his composure in battle, the end was not far.

Now, only two things could happen. Either the girl on Moondancer was going to have a quiver empty of arrows, in that case Moondancer would be forced to flee or fight at closer range, the latter making a sure victory for Sunfyre. Or the dragon of the King would take one wound too important and die from the fall.

Apparently, the first had already happened. Lady Baela had stopped shooting with her bow, and now the two dragons were doing their best to carbonise and devour each other.

It was a magnificent spectacle. A lethal dance of pale green and gold, of flames and roars. The morning sun of autumn was making shine the scales of the fire-breathing lizards like a myriad of jewels. Attacks, counter-attacks, columns of fire, feints and blows which would have destroyed any being save a dragon. The only source of noise was Aegon II yelling now. All the spectators on the towers, ramparts and portcullis of Dragonstone were silent, unconsciously realising they were assisting to a spectacle they may never see again in their lives.

Moondancer bit the golden dragon in his right flank, and Sunfyre breathed a large column of fire, that the pale green dragon avoided with huge difficulties.

The two dragonriders were over the heads of the citadel now, both flying in a roundabout manner to retake their forces before a last assault. Then the ravenous Sunfyre and the swift Moondancer accelerated the cadence of their wings and rushed against each other at speeds a horse would have been way unable to imitate on land.

"FIRE AND BLOOD!" Roared Aegon II, Sunfyre exhaling a cloud of flame so powerful it partially blinded the eyes of every man watching the aerial fight.

But his pearl and green smaller enemy had avoided the inferno and rose again to...was that an arrow?

In an instant, Ser Marston understood, much like Aegon he was sure. The Lady Baela had not been short of arrows, she just had pretended to be. It had all been a way to lure Sunfyre closer...and it had worked.

The shot was magnificent, and the scream which shook every human's heart scores of leagues in the vicinity was strident and agonising. Ser Marston couldn't see where the projectile had found its mark, but the shrilling scream was definitely not good.

Then Sunfyre fell from the skies with no warning. One instant the dragon which had been admired and considered the most beautiful by both nobles and smallfolk was breathing fire in defiance, the other it fell like a stone.

"NO! NO!" Shouted Broome.

The impact when Sunfyre touched the ground in front of the Stone Drum Keep was particularly heart-breaking. The royal dragon had fallen on its undamaged wing, leaving only the crippled one risen, showing anyone the severe damage the projectiles had done, shredding the non-armoured skin and tendons. It was then everyone alive heard Aegon II, King of Westeros, Protector of the Andals and the First Men, Defender of the Faith and Protector of the Realm, pushing a scream of agony and untold suffering. Ser Marston raced ahead, in his own mind doubting it was going to do anything. Aegon II had not had the time to unseat and jump off his doomed dragon. And the immense majority of dragon deaths were invariably followed by those of their rider.

As the crowd formed around the doomed dragon, the reason of the fall was clear. From Sunfyre's left eye pointed a black arrow, so deeply ensconced only the fletching and the nock were visible. A killing shot if there ever was one. Sunfyre was not emitting any roar or rumble. The golden dragon was dead.

One look on the other side was enough to know it was way too late to save the king too. Aegon II had not managed to extricate himself from the chains of his saddle in time. Sunfyre has collapsed on the lower part of his master, crushing his legs and everything below the torso. No maester could heal major wounds like that. Already, the skin of the King was losing all colour and the pool of blood was widening around the dragon.

"I... I...am ...the ...King." Managed to say Aegon II, blood gurgling in his mouth, the effort to speak evidently costing him a lot of his remaining energy.

Then his eyes closed, his breath slowed before completely ceasing. The crowd of knights and men-at-arms around the dragon's body made no whispering or murmur. They were all in shock.

"The King is dead..." Whispered Ser Alfred Broome before repeating louder "The King is dead!"

A roar of victory answered, and Ser Marston and the entire garrison saw Lady Baela Targaryen and Moondancer swirling over the citadel in a dance of victory before flying at full speed eastwards.

"What are we going to do? What are we going to do?" Ser Alfred Broome was in full-panic mode, his wits having left him.

It was the worst thing to say. The castellan of Dragonstone had just admitted he had no plan to deal with the situation in hand, in front of the whole garrison. Unavoidably, the mass of soldiers had ideas. And ideas...

"Long live the True Queen! Long live Rhaenyra Targaryen! "Bayed a knight in Celtigar colours before piercing the throat of Broome with his longsword. Ser Broome collapsed, his near-decapitated head showing stupefaction.

"No! Aegon is the True King!" Screamed a man in brown armour. "Kill the Blacks!"

Ser Marston unleashed his sword against a low-born sergeant wielding an axe, cutting his right leg and terminating him in the same movement.

Around him, the walls, the courtyard and the towers of Dragonstone were the scenes of a madhouse, fighters of every House reconsidering their allegiance at the worst moment possible. Spears clashed with pikes. Swordsmen and axemen fought in a dance of blood and death. Archers and the servants of ballista turned over their weapons to slaughter those who had been their comrades a moment ago.

 _The Queen will never forgive us for this._

But as a man in Bar Emmon colours evaded his sword and kicked him in the face, Ser Marston Waters realised he really didn't care.

 _The Dance is over._

And on this last thought, he let darkness claimed him.

 **Point Of Divergence**

The aerial fight over the island of Dragonstone took an even worse turn for Aegon II Targaryen than possibly thought, thanks to the young Baela Targaryen taking her favourite bow with her and slaying Sunfyre with a perfect shot in the eye. King Aegon II Targaryen was unable to jump from his falling dragon in time and got crushed by his agonizing mount.

Following his death, the garrison of Dragonstone, who had been about to greet their new lord after having killed the castellan named by Queen Rhaenyra, slaughtered each other in a deadly and improvised civil war. While the men truly loyal to the Green cause finally emerged victorious and in possession of the Royal Valyrian sword Blackfyre, the damage had been done. King Aegon II was dead and Baela Targaryen, eldest daughter of Prince Daemon Targaryen, had long escaped on her nimble dragon Moondancer.

The consequences of this regicide did not make itself wait. At King's Landing, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen widely celebrated the news when she heard of her half-brother's death and proclaimed victory. Unfortunately for her and her family, this proclamation was way too premature, the capital being on the verge of a major insurrection, thanks to the brutal and merciless policies of the woman having earned the not flattering nickname of "Maegor with tits".

The death of Aegon II was the candle which lit the inferno. Led by a crazed prophet named the Shepherd, a crowd of bloodthirsty men formed and stormed the Dragonpit. It was a slaughter to make the veterans of the civil war pale. There were only four dragons chained in the Dragonpit, but each fought with claws and fangs, before breathing inferno consuming everything. Tens of thousands died, and with the death of the dragon Dreamfyre the Dragonpit collapsed, burying the survivors forever in the rubble. The carnage was incredible. And it was not the end.

Enraged beyond measure, Queen Rhaenyra mounted Syrax and flew on to devastate this rebellion in fire and blood. Six times Rhaenyra gave the fire command to her dragon. Six times Syrax obeyed, plunging entire blocks of the city in a sea of fire. But there was no seventh attempt. On Visenya's hill hundreds of smallfolk archers had taken position, and the lack of military experience of the Queen had ensured they were not remarked until it was too late. Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, eldest daughter of King Viserys I, died from three arrows in the back. The dragon Syrax, made uncontrollable by the death of his mistress, provoked thousands of deaths before being ultimately brought down, though there were few left alive to claim they had done the deed.

With the death of the two last major claimants for the Iron Throne, the succession order was completely in ashes. Normally, Rhaenyra's heir should have been her eldest surviving son Joffrey, but the boy many suspected to be a Strong bastard had rushed to fight and been slaughtered in the battle against hundreds of the smallfolk. Aegon the Younger, who would have been the next best choice was dead too, although the circumstances of his demise were far less clear. For the Greens, Prince Aemond Targaryen was next, but the bloodthirsty man having burnt half of the Riverlands rushed to challenge his uncle Prince Daemon at Harrenhal on Vhagar. The most formidable and experienced dragonriders and dragons of the Dance clashed over Harrenhal and the God's Eye, in a deadly battle. None emerged alive, Daemon managing to stab Aemond in the eye with Dark Sister before clashing with the surface of the lake when Vhagar and Caraxes killed each other.

Still, the Greens had one more card to play in the person of Prince Daeron, younger brother of Aegon II and hero of the Battle on the Honeywine. From the Second Battle of Tumbleton and the surprise assault of Ser Adam Velaryon, Prince Daeron was the only dragonrider to emerge alive, the Two Betrayers and Ser Adam clashing and dying by treachery or dragonfire. The massive Hightower army was down to barely one third of its numbers after the black Riverlands forces retreated from the battlefield, but urged by prince Daeron they persevered and made their junction with Lord Borros Baratheon forces.

King's Landing having collapsed in chaos, it was fairly easy for the Green army to storm the city and bring back some semblance of order. In front of the Iron Throne, Prince Daeron Targaryen was crowned, becoming King Daeron Targaryen, First of the Name, with thousands of swords from the Stormlands and the Reach acclaiming him.

And yet the Dance is not over. The Lads, the main Riverlands army has now reformed again at Harrenhal, forcing the last Green loyalists of the area to submit and killing the pregnant mistress of Prince Aemond, the sorceress Alys Rivers. In the last days of 130AC, the River lords have been joined by plenty of Vale knights now that the number of dragons has strongly decreased, and a formidable army of the North under Lord Cregan Stark himself. In the Vale, Baela Targaryen has been crowned Queen at the Eyrie, becoming the de facto leader of the Blacks.

King's Landing is calm for the moment, but with the food situation particularly problematic, there is no way to know how long it will last.

On the West coast, the Ironborn are reaving in actions never seen since the Hoare era, and the Lannisters who are still alive are powerless to stop them. The order of things has collapsed in countless places, and now brigands, warlords, deserters and monsters reign in the countryside. With food storages and granaries having been burnt by the dozens by one side or the other and war continuing, the winter to come is going to be terrible...

 **The Current State of Westeros as of 131 AC**

 **The Green Dragon**

 **King on the Iron Throne:** Daeron I 'the Daring' Targaryen, third son of King Viserys I Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightower, and now their only surviving child. Courteous and of above average intelligence, the young man of sixteen name-days has been elevated to the throne, a title which by all accounts he did not desire but took by duty. King Daeron is handsome, but to the displeasure of several noble ladies has already married Lady Arianne Baratheon to seal the alliance with the Stormlands in blood and marriage.

Now the last dragonrider available to the Green faction, as the Two Betrayers have fallen and all his other siblings or relatives have had their dragon killed, in the majority of the cases with the dragonrider's life shortly preceding or following them. Bonded to the dragon Tessarion, the Blue Queen.

King Daeron I has inherited from his brother a realm torn apart by treachery, fire, starvation and multiple centuries-old feuds, and is not particularly enjoying it. Moreover, his Small Council is deeply divided between opening negotiations with the Blacks or keep fighting until there's only one side left standing.

 **Queen Consort** : Lady Arianne Baratheon, Lord Borros's eldest daughter. In the first negotiations, Lady Arianne was promised to Prince Aemond, a betrothal which did not augured well for the girl, as Aemond had already a reputation of womaniser, cruelty and debauchery. But the Prince went to his doom at Harrenhal, and Lord Borros was rapid to change marriage targets when he heard the news of Aemond's death.

Not a great beauty by any stretch of the imagination, Lady Arianne has a colourful figure with her black hair and brown eyes, and many report the King and her have established a working relationship.

 **Princess of Dragonstone** : Princess Jaehaera Targaryen, last surviving children of King Aegon the Second of the Name. A sweet and simple girl. Due to the Green opinion that a boy always passes before a girl in the royal succession, her uncle Daeron I has been preferred to her for the throne.

A choice many find good, since the young Princess is by all accounts unstable, understandable as the Princess saw her older brother be murdered before her very eyes and wait at Storm's End with Ser Willis Fell as the rest of her family fell one by one in the civil war.

Her dragon was Morghul, who died in the storming of the Dragonpit.

 **Dowager Queen** : Lady Alicent Hightower. Released from the prison Queen Rhaenyra had thrown her into, the second wife of King Viserys I is in constant depression these days. In theory still a member of the Small Council, but in practise has not attended since her imprisonment.

Mourning from the death of her children, Lady Alicent has released all matter of state and rule to Daeron I and is quite slim and gaunt these days. Many at court expect her to not pass the year.

 **The Small Council**

 **Hand of the King:** Lord Borros Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End, Lord Paramount of the Stormlands. Tall, broad and black-haired, Lord Borros is a very belligerent man. He is also completely illiterate, and a muscled brute who is only said to find pleasure in the battlefield.

While he officially supported the Greens due to Prince Aemond officially agreeing to a marriage with his eldest daughter, there are some who affirm in the shadows the Lord of Storm's End refused to think a woman should ever sit on the Iron Throne.

Following the incident between Prince Lucerys Velaryon and Prince Aemond Targaryen, he gained the nickname 'the Perfidious Storm' among the Black lords. One of the main lords thinking the civil war has to be fought until every Black knight, lord or supporter has been slain.

Is for now busy preparing his army of 15 000 Stormlanders to march to Harrenhal for a new campaign in the Riverlands. Lord Borros has notably alienated himself from several Reach commanders for his bloody methods, his insulting manners and his general conduct during the conflict.

 **Master of Laws:** Lord Durran 'the Crimson Lion' Grandison, Lord of Grandview. A well-feared Lord of the Stormlands, Lord Durran has crushed personally two attempts of House Peasebury and Rogers to go to the Black side. During the retaking of King's Landing, the Lord of Grandview executed by his own hand, a score of surviving Goldcloaks, despite his word they would be allowed to join the Night's Watch.

One of the major commanders under Lord Borros Baratheon, fights in the hope his second and third son will have lordships for his loyal service. Believes the war has to be fought to the bitter end, extremely confident of the ultimate Green victory.

Under his tenure, the streets of the capital have taken an eerie calm, though it is unknown whether it is because the dragons have killed so many people or Lord Durran has beaten them into submission. Or a combination of both.

 **Master of Coin:** Ser Tyland Lannister, brother of the late Jason Lannister, who was Lord of Casterly Rock before Ser Pate of the Longleaf killed him.

Upon his assignment at the beginning of the war, Ser Tyland took over the Royal Treasury, and divided it into several parts, one deposited to the Iron Bank of Braavos, one to Oldtown, one to Casterly Rock and the rest was spent in hiring sellswords and bribing key lords and knights.

When Queen Rhaenyra entered the capital, the Lannister knight was given to the torturers in the hope he revealed where and in which proportions he had hidden the gold. Ser Tyland refused to talk, and paid a horrible price: he was gelded, blinded and mutilated by the torturers. His health, despite his liberation, is awful and he can only attend one third of the Council meetings as his injuries provoke high-level amount of paint.

But the worst of the affair is that his efforts may come to naught. The Greens have still control of the Royal treasury, but with Westeros aflame from Oldtown to the Twins, food become increasingly scarce and even the Free Cities refuse to tread in Westerosi waters where the Blacks and Greens clash, thus all the gold is progressively becoming irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. What the Seven Kingdoms need are food and men...and so far these two resources are not overabundant.

 **Master of Ships:** Lord Corlys Velaryon, Master of Driftmark, Lord of the Tides. Former Master of Ships of the Blacks, Corlys was imprisoned by Queen Rhaenyra in the black cells when he warned Addam Velaryon from his imminent arresting for unjust causes.

Released and pardoned by King Daeron I when the Greens retook King's Landing, but his influence and power have greatly diminished. Driftmark is an island smoking of the devastation brought by the Three Daughters' fleet, many ships of the Velaryon fleet are destroyed or have gone over to Gulltown to serve his granddaughter Queen Baela.

Lord Corlys is not a young man, and with his health diminishing, is seeing all he had hold dear progressively collapse. Holds Queen Rhaenyra responsible for the death of his wife and Ser Addam.

Supporter of peace, the Lord of the Tides believes more war will only result in further tragedy.

 **Master of Whispers:** Lord Larys 'Clubfoot' Strong, Lord of Harrenhal. His father and his older brother died in a fire under mysterious circumstances in 120AC, making him a target for suspicions and rumours at court. Enigmatic and cunning like most Master of Whisperers before him, Lord Larys has proved his worth time and again to the Green cause, managing the escape of the King and his children when Queen Rhaenyra took the city. Unfortunately, his advices and news have also been ignored several times by Prince Aemond and Ser Criston Cole, who both disliked any type of subterfuge and misdirection (that the two are dead and Lord Larys is still alive has been noted by pretty much everyone of importance).

Has slowly started to support negotiations between the Blacks and the Greens, as the damage of the war is becoming painfully evident and the opposing armies are too evenly matched.

 **Grand Maester:** Grand Maester Orwyle. When Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen took King's Landing, the old maester was arrested and escorted to the black cells, before he had a time to send a single raven to sound the alert to the Green forces. There, he wrote his account of the war ravaging Westeros, trying to paint himself in the best light possible.

When the Greens retook the capital, Grand Maester Orwyle was freed from his imprisonment though it has left a heavy toll on him and many expect him to die before 131AC has ended. Advocates for peace, but his loyalty has been called into question recently due to his writings.

 **Master of Arms:** Lord Unwin Peake, Lord of Starpike, Dustonbury and Whitegrove, a treacherous and ambitious man. Was elevated to his present honour for his participation in the Caltrops conspiracy, allowing to slay the Two Betrayers in the Second Battle of Tumbleton. Desires war, if only to boost the gains he has already received.

 **The Kingsguard**

 **Lord Commander** Ser Gyles Belgrave. One of the two survivors from King Aegon II's Kingsguard. The cost of the war in terms of lives and friends, added to the weight of losing his monarch, had left the man tormented and he rarely smiles anymore. The knight of House Belgrave hates the black supporters with every fibre of his being, as the holdings of his family in the Reach have been wiped out to the last babe by Lord Rowan and his army. Has the heavy task of making the smallfolk forget the disastrous legacy of Ser Criston Cole, massacred at the Battle of the Butcher's Ball.

 **Ser** Willis Fell, the last survivor of King Viserys I's Kingsguard. Ser Willis is the personal guard of Princess Jaehaera Targaryen since his departure from King's Landing when the capital surrendered to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen. A proud and loyal man.

 **Ser** Mervyn Flowers, the bastard brother of Lord Unwin Peake. Sworn into the Kingsguard for his performance in the Second Battle of Tumbleton. While no one can dispute the prowess of the man with a weapon, his morality and his honour are frequently put back into question behind his back.

 **Ser** Baldric Dondarrion, a cousin of a cadet line from the Lord of Blackhaven. Distinguished himself in retaking Rhaenys Hill and the surrounding quarters when the Baratheon army retook King's Landing.

 **Ser** Bayard Mullendore, third son of Lord Mullendore. Ser Bayard showed an extraordinary amount of bravery and skill during the two Battles of Tumbleton, slaying by himself more than a hundred Black knights and men-at-arms.

 **Ser** HowardChyttering, cousin of Lord Chyttering. Not particularly renowned for his prowess on the battlefield, this appointment is mostly a political one, King Daeron I looking for appeasement with the Crownlords, after the bloody actions of King Aegon II, Prince Aemond and Ser Criston Cole.

 **Ser** Lorimar Fossoway, third son of the Lord of Cider Hall. Fought well in the Battle of the Honeywine and the First Battle of Tumbleton. Knighted by then Prince Daeron, now King, and sworn to the Kingsguard after Aegon's coronation.

 **Lords Paramount**

 **Lord of the North:** With the lands of the North in open rebellion, there is currently no Lord Paramount of this region as of this moment, and short of a negotiated solution, there probably won't be for a long time. Lord Cregan Stark has firmly united the North under a single banner, and the Greens have been unable to find any lord they could rally to them with lands and titles. The actions of Lord Rodrik 'Roddy the Ruin' Dustin have moreover been an inspiration for thousands of Northmen, who now want to bath in Southerner blood and avenge his death.

 **Lord of the Riverlands:** With the lands of the Riverlands in open rebellion, there is currently no Lord Paramount of this region as of this moment. The one-man war Prince Aemond Targaryen did on his dragon Vhagar has pretty much killed any possibility on that side. Lord Mooton is one of the rare lords to have defected to the Greens, but every side agrees he had not the choice considering the insulting orders Queen Rhaenyra uttered in the last days of her reign.

 **Lord of the Vale:** With the lands of the Vale in open rebellion, there is currently no Lord Paramount of this region as of this moment. Given the coronation of Queen Baela on the Eyrie before all the major Vale Lords, it is unlikely the Greens will find any base of support here, and with the death of all the sizeable battle-dragons, the Vale has become an extremely tough nut to crack.

 **Lord of the Iron Islands:** With the lands of the Iron Islands in open rebellion, there is currently no Lord Paramount of this region as of this moment. And with the destruction Lord Dalton Greyjoy had dealt to the Westerlands, the possibility of King Daeron I pardoning the Lord Paramount of the Iron Islands is non-existent.

 **Lord of the Reach:** Lord Lyonel Tyrell, a babe in the arms of his mother, who had officially remained neutral while their bannersmen torn each other apart.

 **Lord of the Westerlands:** Lady Johanna Lannister, Lady of Casterly Rock and Warden of the West, Lady Paramount of the Westerlands. Has risen to the position following the death of her husband in the Battle of the Red Fork. With the massive reaver raids of the Ironborn plaguing the coast and the core of the Westerlands troops annihilated at the Battle by the Lakeshore, the West is not in any measure to provide help for the time being.

 **Lord of the Stormlands:** Lord Borros Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End and Hand of the King. With the Stormlands united behind him, his is the most important block supporting the new King Daeron I.

 **The Black Dragon**

 **Queen on the Iron Throne:** Baela 'the Intrepid' Targaryen, the First of the Name, Queen of Westeros, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, Defender of the Faith and Protector of the realm. Eldest twin daughter of Prince Daemon Targaryen and Lady Laena Velaryon, Lady Baela was born in Pentos but was not granted the title of Princess at birth, King Viserys I obviously disapproving of the union. During the initial phase of the Civil War, Lady Baela stayed at Dragonstone, her dragon Moondancer being judged too young and small to be considered battle-ready. The assumption of this affirmation was revealed as wrong when Baela killed Sunfyre in aerial combat, a victory which killed Aegon II and did enormous damage to the Green cause.

Flying towards the Vale, Lady Baela landed at Gulltown and was not long in spreading the news of the king's death, an announce which made some hesitant nobles quickly reconsider their sides in the Dance.

With the death of Queen Rhaenyra and two of her children at King's Landing and Prince Viserys believed dead, Lady Baela has been crowned Queen Baela at the Eyrie, acclaimed by Lady Jeyne Arryn and all her bannersmen.

The Blacks have awarded here the nicknames of "Young Dragoness" and "Intrepid" for this action. The Greens have labelled her the "Kingslayer".

Bonded to the dragon Moondancer, so far has proven to be the most skilled dragonrider of her generation.

Now, with the support of House Stark, Tully and Arryn, firmly intends to reconquer the throne the Blacks have lost. Moondancer has been seen flying to Harrenhal, and the Black armies regrouping there is certainly not a coincidence...

 **King Consort** : None. However, the new Queen being of age to marry and being beautiful, the competition is expected to be particularly ferocious.

 **Heiress to the Throne:** Princess Rhaena Targaryen, the youngest twin sister of Queen Baela. While the dragon in her cradle mishatched at birth, a new dragon egg from Syrax has accepted the cadet twin of Prince Daemon and Lady Laena Velaryon, allowing Rhaena to be considered a dragonrider. The new dragon is called Morning, though it will be a while before the Princess is able to ride in the skies.

 **The Small Council**

 **Hand of the King:** Lord Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. With winter nearly there, the wolf banners have finally been seen south of the Neck, Lord Cregan marching at the head of an army of 12 000 men, old and young soldiers who do not want to burden their families when the temperatures grow cold and the food becomes scarce.

Most of the initial armies mustered in the Dance being reduced to shadows of their former selves, the Northern army is a truly dangerous force, one which inspire fear and respect, the actions of Rodrik Dustin in the Reach and the Riverlands having justified the war prowess of the Northerners.

Named Hand of the King by Queen Baela, with the general assenting that in war-time you need a war leader and Lord Cregan is a commander with few equals and a massive army at his back.

 **Master of Laws:** Lord Thaddeus Rowan, Lord of Goldengrove. The senior commander of the Blacks in the Reach, has regrouped to his lands of Goldengrove to train and reequip new forces before marching south again to defy the Hightowers.

Following the Battle of the Honeywine, it seemed awfully risky but after the Second Battle of Tumbleton, many Black lords having been captured like Lord Alan Tarly and Ser Alan Beesbury were murdered/executed, erasing any leverage on the Houses having sided with Queen Rhaenyra.

Now, with the Hightower army stationed at King's Landing and too far to intervene, Lord Rowan prepares a new campaign to plunge a fatal strike to the Green cause.

 **Master of Coin:** Lord Eon Grafton, Lord of Gulltown **.** A loyal man to the Blacks, Lord Eon has begun shrewdly the coinage of new money in gold and silver, seconded in this effort by Lord Wydon Manderly of White Harbor.

The effects of his work are already significant economically, Lord Eon having managed to put in place edicts forbidding the spending of coins not bearing the Queen Rhaenyra or Queen Baela effigy. The debts to Myr, Tyrosh, and Lys have all been repudiated, and Braavos has been signified that as long as they detain part of the Royal Treasury in the name of the Greens, there will be no new accords or trade overtures.

 **Master of Ships:** Ser Alyn Velaryon. Brother of Ser Addam, was burnt on the back and the legs when he tried to ride the dragon Sheepstealer and failed. Heir to Corlys Velaryon, the young man has taken command of the remaining ships available to the Blacks in Blackwater Bay and joined them with the fleet of Gulltown. His naval forces are now operating in the Narrow Sea, destroying or capturing the convoy of sellswords and food sent by the Free Cities.

 **Master of Whispers:** Lady Sabitha Frey born Vypren. Widow of Lord Forrest Frey, Lady Sabitha has gained an infamous reputation of sleeping with numerous women and decapitating any Green commander who meets her path. Under her guidance, agents of the Blacks are infiltrating every part of the Seven Kingdoms, giving a deep coverage and source of information to the cause of Queen Baela.

In exchange, Lady Sabitha has been promised the life of every member of House Reyne, their lord having killed her beloved husband at the Battle by the Lakeshore.

 **Grand Maester:** Grand Maester Borlor. The Hightower controlling Oldtown and the nomination of any potential Grand Maester, it is the maester of the Eyrie, Maester Borlor, who has been elevated to this rank by Queen Baela.

A man in his late forties enjoying climbing and the high altitudes, the new Black Grand Maester is a fervent supporter of the new Queen and is already planning his first book on the subject of dragons.

 **Master of Arms:** Lord Benjicot Blackwood. A boy of only thirteen, but a veteran of the Dance, guided and trained by his aunt Alysanne Blackwood.

 **The Kingsguard**

 **Lord Commander** Ser Adrian Redfort, one of the two Kingsguards from Queen Rhaenyra to have escaped King's Landing when Syrax began to laid waste to everything. He is now the fourth Lord Commander the Blacks have had since the beginning of this war, and harbours a certain grimness when it is question of the capital.

 **Ser** Harrold Darke, one of the two Kingsguards from Queen Rhaenyra to have escaped King's Landing when Syrax began to laid waste to everything.

 **Ser** Tommard Ryger, a knight veteran of countless battles against the Lannister, nicknamed 'Double-Face' after he was nearly incinerated by the breath of Vhagar.

 **Ser** Duncan Woolfield, one of the rare knights in Northern service having followed Lord Rodrik Dustin south and surviving the First battle of Tumbleton.

 **Ser** Sandor Grafton, a cousin of Lord Eon, the man has managed three times to escape Vhagar in the Riverlands, a feat which gave him the name of 'Flame Survivor'.

 **Ser** Andar Hunter, second son of Lord Hunter, has gone to fight in the Riverlands and been awarded a place in the Kingsguard for his performance.

 **Ser** Jared Paege, a young man knighted at the Second Battle of Tumbleton for the killings he made in the middle of the Hightower camp.

 **Lords Paramount**

 **Lord of the North:** Lord Cregan Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, Lord Paramount of the North and Hand of the King. Very satisfied the North is granted plenty of titles and privileges for their support, and busy planning the development of the Pact of Ice and Fire. His son Rickon is a promising fighter, and could marry the Queen or her Heiress...

 **Lord of the Riverlands:** Lord Kermit Tully, Lord of Riverrun. His father Lord Elmo was Lord of Riverrun for only forty-nine days before dying and passing the title to him. Has slain Lord Swyft during the Fishfeed, and killed many Reach knights during the Second Battle of Tumbleton. A dangerous man, is currently talking with Lord Stark about organising a campaign in the Westerlands to take the gold and the food his lands require to survive the winter.

 **Lord of the Vale:** Lady Jeyne Arryn, Lady of the Eyrie and Warden of the East. A woman in her fifties, Lady Jeyne was forced to leave her forces home during the greatest part of the conflict, the Vale being extremely vulnerable to dragons and the passes being buried under hundreds of snow feet. But now, with so few dragons living, transports of Gulltown have begun ferrying troops in the Bay of Crabs for a campaign which will decide the course of the war.

 **Lord of the Iron Islands:** Lord Dalton 'the Red Kraken' Greyjoy. Received from Queen Rhaenyra the royal authorisation to reave and sack the Westerlands and Reach coasts, and so far has done exactly that, plundering Lannisport, conquering Fair Isle, burning Kayce, Feastfires and even briefly besieging Castamere.

 **Lord of the Reach:** Lord Lyonel Tyrell, a babe in the arms of his mother, by necessity neutral, though the neutrality in question is suspected by a lot of persons to be a facade as the Tyrells close their eyes and leave the Hightower crush the dissenters to their authority.

 **Lord of the Westerlands:** With the lands of the Westerlands in open rebellion, there is currently no Lord Paramount of this region as of this moment. And with how many Western lords the Riverlands army has killed since the Dance started, reconciliation is pretty much in the realm of impossible. Houses Lannister, Lefford and Reyne wants the Blacks dead yesterday if it is possible, and many Houses which could have replaced them have been crippled by the Ironborn raids.

 **Lord of the Stormlands:** With the lands of the Stormlands in open rebellion, there is currently no Lord Paramount of this region as of this moment for the Blacks, and it is going to be difficult to find one, Lord Borros Baratheon and his right arm the Lord of Grandview having killed the ones who harboured ideas of defying their authority.

 **Dorne:**

 **Prince of Dorne:** Prince Qoren Martell, Lord of Sunspear. A careful and prudent man, has openly declared his complete neutrality in the conflict ravaging his northern neighbour. When asked if he wanted to intervene, Prince Qoren affirmed that Dorne had already danced with dragons, and paid the price. The most powerful man of Dorne declared his willingness to sleep in a bed of scorpions before making the same mistake again.

As a result of this position, Dorne is the only area of the continent where nobody is preparing for war. Trade is flourishing with Essos, and Dornish-owned ships have been extremely demanded to avoid some unpleasantness on the seas. And yet there are things agitating in the desert among the snakes, the scorpions and the other venomous animals.

There are some lords who are willing to pay back the Targaryen in blood for the Dornish War and the wrath of the dragons, and now that the fire-breathing reptiles are less powerful and less numerous, this option is becoming more seducing. For the moment, only 'brigands' of Lord Wyl have done some raids in lands belonging to the Marcher lords.

But should the Dance continue and with the elite forces of the Stormlands away, the civil war could take a new turn...

 **Status of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros**

 **The Stormlands** : When war came to the Stormlands, Lord Borros Baratheon and his main bannersmen struck rapidly in support of the Greens. Any of their bannersman who had the will, the thought or the conviction to stand with the Blacks was ruthlessly put to the sword.

And yet the Stormlands were forced at first to stay at home. Former pirates once having sworn their allegiance to Prince Daemon Targaryen made several attempts to capture Tarth, forcing thousands of men-at-arms to defend the Sapphire Isle. There was also the risk of leaving the Marches without most of their forces, leaving the path open for a Dornish invasion.

But the Dornish stayed at home and the pirates were ultimately vanquished. Never the most patient of men, Lord Borros Baratheon started his march northwards with 15 000 men and retook King's Landing in time to greet and crown King Daeron I, the new King of Westeros.

So far, the war has been extremely beneficial for the Stormlands, with most of the lands intact and the food stores unspoiled. But it is not enough for many of the Stormlords, who now are preparing for a new campaign, one which will surely crush the last of the Blacks and confirm King Daeron I as the sole and only claimant for the Iron Throne...

 **The Reach:** When the war started, House Hightower thought the allegiance of the Reach in their favour was a done-deal. The Lord of Highgarden was a babe nursed by his mother, and their influence at the capital was at its peak. They thought wrong.

The wealth and the influence made many jealous and angry lords, including House Rowan, Tarly, Beesbury, Footly and Grimm. Many of the Blacks were defeated on the Honeywine and at Tumbleton, but in the end these victories have been self-defeating.

House Hightower has imposed higher and higher taxes, the hostages they take have a frequent tendency to end dead, though the Blacks are always blamed for their demise.

And while the big battles have gone the Green way, there are dozens of minor skirmishes in the countryside and the hills between Greens and Blacks, ambushes and minor battles which bleed the Reach manpower in a thousand cuts. At Goldengrove, Lord Rowan has gathered back three thousand or so men, and hundreds of brigands, sellswords and outlaws are pillaging thorough the Reach. So far only Tumbleton has received the wrath of the dragons, but food is definitely becoming scarce, and the winter which approves promise to be difficult for the unprepared Southerners...

 **The North** : Like the Vale and unlike the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, the North has not suffered any damage in the civil war, its only losses consisting in the two thousand men Lord Rodrik Dustin took with him in the South and who largely perished at the Fishfeed and the Second Battle of Tumbleton.

But now 12 000 Northerners have crossed the Neck. It is not only the thirst of glory which animates this brave and hard old and young men, but a phenomenon far more implacable.

Winter is coming.

With Lord Cregan Stark leading them, the North has slowly mustered, letting the Southerners tire and massacre themselves. But now there are here, and the Game of Thrones is not going to be the same again. Lord Cregan and his allies want to punish Casterly Rock, Storm's End and Oldtown for having sided with Aegon II and nobody in the Black side is disagreeing with them...

 **The Riverlands** : Of all the kingdoms of Westeros, the Riverlands are probably the area which has the most suffered from the war, with the Westerlands a very distant second. The one-man war Prince Aemond did on his dragon Vhagar has burnt hundreds of villages, scores of forts, six castles and uncountable hamlets, houses, wells, bridges and constructions. And as the cadet brother of Aegon II made no difference between Green and Black holdings, everyone from the lowest peasant to the highest lord has now an immense hate against the Green faction and their royals.

Dragonfire has torched the Riverlands on large areas, annihilating the food stores, launching thousands of smallfolk and deserters on the roads. Orders in some places has collapsed entirely, and several knights and lords are right now leading bands outside the Riverlands to raid the resources of the neighbouring Westerlands and Reach.

 **The Westerlands:** First promised rich holdings in the Riverlands and the Northern Marshes for their support, House Lannister and the Westerlands saw quickly the war turn against them. At the Battle by the Lakeshore (more commonly known at the Fishfeed) the Western armies lost twenty thousand men, and before it their Lord and Master Lord Jason Lannister had already been lost.

In two engagements, most of the knights, lords and renowned men of the West were killed. And then the Ironborn attacked, sacking Lannisport and slaughtering their way through the hills and the rich fields having made the prosperity of House Lannister.

Mines were pillaged. Children, women and men were taken captive by the Greyjoys and their captains to serve as thralls and salt wives.

The Ironborn could not take Casterly Rock, but the rest of the Westerlands was aflame. Less and less men were alive to fight the tide of darkness, and a quarter of the grain and the livestock has already disappeared in the longships hulls or the flames of the raids.

Now, the Westerlands inhabitants hope for a miracle. A miracle which would allow them vengeance against the murderous Riverlords, and allow them to repulse the Greyjoys. Of course, the massing troops on their eastward frontier could lead to the opposite scenario...

 **The Vale:** Extremely vulnerable to the dragons, the Vale was forced to concentrate most of his strength at home despite being overwhelmingly loyal to the Blacks and Queen Rhaenyra. The passes being completely blocked by snow and ice left only Gulltown to leave the Vale anyway.

But now the dragons have fallen, the mighty beasts shining by their absence. The Vale has crowned a new Queen.

Entirely spared by the war until then save the lone pirate, the food stores of the Vale are undamaged and its armies powerful. Like Lord Cregan Stark and the North, Lady Jeyne Arryn and the Vale lords have seen the opportunities. And as 131AC starts, thousands of Valemen have begun to muster and leave for the Riverlands...

 **The Iron Islands:** The Iron Price has made a triumphant come-back with the civil war. Lord Dalton Greyjoy decision to side with the blacks has brought more wealth, plunder and thralls than in the Ironborn's wildest dreams. In the course of two years, the reavers have left a trail of destruction visible from the top of Casterly Rock.

In the halls of Pyke, Harlaw, Great Wyk and all the other major islands, songs rise to recount the exploits of the fearless captains who have cut their way through the greenlanders. And now with the West in flames, Lord Dalton Greyjoy is turning his attention further south. The tendrils of the Kraken are always hungry, and now there are new preys to be pursued... **  
**

 **Status of Important and Famous Individuals**

 **Dragons and Dragonesses**

 **The Cannibal** , a wild dragon, never tamed, living in the interior of Dragonstone island. All who have tried to make him submit have finished in his stomach. The volunteers are somewhat lacking after a litany of failures.

 **Sheepstealer** , a dragon mounted by a dragonseed named Nettles. After Queen Rhaenyra decreed Nettles was a traitor, dragon and dragonrider disappeared from Maidenpool and have not been observed since.

 **Notable Characters of the Crownlands**

 **Prince Viserys Targaryen** , by the laws of gods and men, the young prince should have been crowned King Viserys, the Second of the Name, King of Westeros by the Black faction. Unfortunately for him, Prince Viserys is thought dead as he is held captive in the city of Lys, and no one of the Blacks is aware of the problem to change the situation.

As the union of the Three Daughters dissolve in Civil War and the waters turn to blood, the possibility of returning to Westeros for the moment is utterly non-existent for the exiled Prince.

 **Notable characters of the Riverlands**

 **Ser Symond 'Let's Surrender' Strong** , Castellan of Harrenhal. The poor knight has had the bad fortune of surrendering seven times his castle since the beginning of this war, and he is reduced to hope each time will be the last surrender. Maybe.

 **Lord Manfryd 'the Poor Traitor' Mooton** , Lord of Maidenpool. Forced by the insane orders of Queen Rhaenyra, Lord Mooton holds the distinction of being the last loyalist lord of the Riverlands on the Green Side. And everyone knows the man wish to be on the other side. Already, ravens have flown, demanding the price of a pardon to the daughter of Prince Daemon.

 **Lady Alysanne 'Black Aly' Blackwood** , aunt of Lord Benjicot Blackwood, commander of the Riverlands archers. A fearsome leader of men and women, and an archer without equal. Is said to have slaughtered over a hundred Westerners lords and knights with her arrows, danced over the fuming ruins of Stone Edge naked and plenty of other outlandish tales. **  
**

 **Notable characters of the North**

 **Rickon Stark** , Heir to Winterfell. A handsome young man, attracting plenty of attention by his performance with a warhammer and his rogue looks rarely seen south of the Neck. An appearance which is leaving several ladies and noblewomen far from indifferent...

 **Men of the Night's Watch**

 **Lord Commander Ramsay 'the Joker' Bolton, 942nd Lord Commander of the Night's Watch** , brother of the current Lord Bolton, Ramsay is somewhat an anomaly among this House in that he is always smiling and playing jokes with his subordinates. Extremely popular among the ranks.

There are unfortunately worries among the ranks on the Night's Watch. Two more forts have been closed under his tenure, and the current civil war is not leaving many prisoners taking the black, a consequence of dragons toasting everyone and fatal accidents happening to everyone which surrenders.


	2. Sitting on the Iron Throne

**Chapter 2**

 **Sitting on the Iron Throne**

 **King Daeron I Targaryen**

Once upon a time in bard tales, seating on the Iron Throne had been a moment of triumph and satisfaction, knowing the man on top of these hundreds of swords was the master of lands going from the Wall to Oldtown.

This time had long gone away, assuming it had really existed.

These days the view was just depressing. That was Daeron opinion though, but the newly crowned monarch had just had mere days to get used to it. With time, it was possible it would change. Stranger things had happened. Stranger things could happen. The Wall could collapse. Casterly Rock could be taken by force of arms. The Ironborn could decide to abandon piracy and become respectable merchants. The last thought brought almost a laugh to the young dragonrider.

Looking straight in front of him, the smile disappeared altogether.

His father, the now deceased King Viserys Targaryen, First of the Name, had confirmed the tradition of putting the skulls of dragons deceased in the throne room, and his brother Aegon had never broken it.

It had not been a problem during his father and his grandfather's reign. Since the Conqueror had forged this thrice-cursed uncomfortable throne, there had only been three major dragons to die.

Balerion the Black Dread, dead of old age, so powerful none of its own species had managed to challenge it while it was alive.

Meraxes, Queen Rhaenys ride, shot down with the Queen by a scorpion bolt in the eye over the Hellholt when House Targaryen tried to conquer Dorne and failed.

Quicksilver, King Aenys's dragon. Defeated by Balerion while Aenys' son Aegon flew it in the Battle Beneath the God's Eye.

And that had been it. In over one hundred and twenty years of reign, three and only three adult battle dragons had been lost of all causes.

A survivability that would have been undoubtedly impressive if in the last three years the Targaryen dynasty had not lost no less than fifteen dragons, young and old.

Arrax, massacred by his brother Aemond and Vhagar at Storm's End.

Meleys, fallen at Rook's Rest in a desperate battle against his two brothers Aegon and Aemond.

Vermax, the dragon of Jacaerys, disappeared with his master at the Battle of the Gullet.

The Grey Ghost, eaten by Sunfyre in a pure act of cannibalism if there ever was one.

Sunfyre, the royal dragon infirmed and broken, shot down by a fateful arrow at Dragonstone.

Dreamfyre, Syrax, Morghul, Shrykos and Tyraxes, slain in the Storming of the Dragonpit and the riots having caused so much devastation to King's Landing.

Vermithor, Seasmoke and Silverwing, killed at the Second Battle of Tumbleton, two of them under his own orders to ensure the Betrayers paid with their lives their usurpation attempts.

Caraxes and Vhagar, the two most powerful battle-dragons living of their time, which destroyed each other at the God's Eye.

Fifteen. Out of eighteen mature dragons at the beginning of the war. And of the three left, no one knew where Sheepstealer could be at this moment, and the Cannibal had never accepted a rider in five decades of life. In practise, it left only his lovely Tessarion as the closest thing to a battle-dragon.

The carnage of the ongoing war had prevented all the dragon skulls to be present in the Red Keep, but they were still twelve of them now, darkening by their very presence the ambiance. For a dragonrider, the warning was clear.

The next skull they bring here could be your dragon. And by fate or battle, few Targaryen survived long the death of their bonded. Every bard tale and record agreed on that.

 _Not that they are many of us anymore._

The Targaryen dynasty was for now reduced to four members, Daeron himself and three girls.

 _So many deaths..._

Contemplating the courtiers, knights, guards and nobles presently in the throne room, waiting for the last justice demands to be rendered for the day, Daeron Targaryen thoughts were not very light. Whether he cared to admit it or not in public, everyone knew the Targaryen main force to unite Westeros had been the dragons. The inheritance of Valyria. The rulers of the sky. And now this force was facing the real danger of extinction.

"Your Majesty, there is one last petitioner." Affirmed Grand Maester Orwyle, in this hesitant and tired voice that he had gained during his imprisonment in the Blacks Cells of the Red Keep, designing with a wave of his hand the figure of a knight wearing the banners of House Harte waiting patiently several feet away from the barbed blades where Daeron sat.

"Good." Daeron forced a smile to come to his lips. The knight was alone and did not look particularly angry or desperate, this should be an easy supplicant. "In that case, better -"

The King had not the time to finish the sentence. The great doors, the most direct access to the Iron Throne if one came outside Maegor's holdfast, opened in full, disgorging a massive cohort of septons and septas in their white ceremony clothes. And leading them, of course...

"The High Septon!" Announced the royal herald, doing his best and failing to not look completely overwhelmed by the situation.

Whispers and murmurs spread in the ranks of the nobility and the wealthy assisting to the spectacle, and a part of Aegon understood them. Since Maegor the Cruel had massacred the Poor Fellows by the tens of thousands and Jaehaerys the Conciliator had disbanded the Faith Militant, certain courtesies were to be maintained between the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and the leader of the Faith. And not just because the monarchs after the Maegor edict had justly proven they were far more powerful than any religious authority.

These measures had just been trampled and ignored in a single moment, as the High Septon advanced towards Daeron and the Iron Throne. Four times the High Septon had demanded an audience to Viserys I during his reign; each time it had been a fortnight in advance and with a far more limited number of influential lords assisting to it. Unless his memory fails him, Daeron could not recall having sent such a prestigious invitation.

Daeron did his best not to frown, grimace or show an expression of dissatisfaction. No matter how he personally felt, a king was entitled to certain behaviour. And that what he was: a king, thanks to the battle-lust of his two eldest brothers. If Daeron had to be honest with himself, the young Targaryen king knew he should have expected a move such like this from the Faith.

The Harte knight chose wisely to go join the public, wisely considering his luck of obtaining justice on this day was really nil. In turn, it allowed Daeron to contemplate the man marching towards him.

The highest representative of the Seven on this earth was no longer the one who had given his blessing to Aegon on his coronation's day after Lord Commander Criston Cole had proclaimed his eldest brother King. The former High Septon of three years ago had been solidly bought and paid by Hightower gold. Reliable, to the point Daeron's mother had been able to write his important sermons word for word, verse for verse. Alas, the man was no longer of this world. When King's Landing fell the first time, the High Septon had disappeared. According to Lord Larys, Prince Daemon Targaryen had very quietly arranged his assassination by unsavoury sellswords. The man chosen to be the replacement by Rhaenyra had been a black supporter through and through, who had been torn apart in the riots having killed so many in the capital. According to the Master of Whisperers, this death too had been nothing but due to chance, one hundred Stormlands men hacking their way through a sept to do the deed.

The replacement's replacement, to call a cat by its real name, was younger, showing a finely tailed beard and grim black eyes under the magnificent crystal tiara of his office. The priest wore white robes, with the only decoration in gold clearly visible being a seven-pointed star above where his heart beat. All in all it was a stern figure, not easy to make laugh or intimidate.

 _Why did the Most Devout not choose another man?_

"Your Grace." Daeron managed with a great deal of self-taught control not to wince. The tone could have been considered respectful in other circumstances. Nevertheless, Daeron had heard this kind of voice a lot of times on the battlefield in the last moons. Respectful, yes, before the lord or the knight in front of you brandished his sword and tried to remove your head.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me so promptly, your Grace."

Daeron wanted no better to strangle the insolent priest at that moment. Not trusting his tongue to deliver an insult, his answer was a curt nod, along with the brief answer:

"The pleasure is all mine, your Holiness." Daeron lied. The silver-haired king could not resist a small pique at his interlocutor." But you did not come all this way from the Sept to hear this."

"Indeed not." The voice of the High Septon had turned truly mournful in one moment. A man less versed in the nasty talents required in the Game of Thrones would have almost believed the holy septon was about to cry. "A terrible loss happened, your Grace! A terrible and most awful event!"

The religious let just enough moment for everyone present to be devoured by curiosity then finished his oration.

"I speak of course, of foul and most horrid murder! West of Raventree Hall, Septon Lucos the Merciful and all the pilgrims following him were peacefully spreading the light of the Faith when they were odiously butchered by men in arms!"

Then the High Septon added, almost as an afterthought. "These monsters were carrying a banner of the black dragon."

Three or four scores of conversations started in low voices at the announce of these news. The King did his best not to smile or show his pleasure.

Daeron had heard of this 'Lucos the Merciful'. Formerly a septon in the Crownlands, Lucos had travelled in the Riverlands and the Reach murdering and stealing every settlement or village on his way that wasn't powerful enough to make flee his band armed with cudgels and rusty pointed tools. Unlike many brigands and other sellswords of the war, Lucos had been intelligent to avoid the patrols Greens and Blacks had sent to track him down. The septon had survived and gained enough popularity for his band of 'pilgrims' to become a real problem. A couple hundred of religious fanatics are no danger to a small army, but with cudgels they were sufficient to beat any smallfolk wanting to resist them. Well, until now. Someone had evidently managed to send this Lucos and his supporters to the Seven Hells where they belonged.

In other circumstances, Daeron would have stood up on the throne and cheered at this news. Perhaps even sent a gift to the black lords and his cousin Baela for ridding his kingdom of such poisonous filth.

He couldn't. Not only he wasn't exactly keen to thank the person who had slain his brother in dragon duel, standing on the throne would have meant risking been bled out by these hundreds of blades fixed by the Black Dread, and cheering would cost him the support of the Faith.

 _Not that they revealed themselves useful in this war_ , whispered a little voice in his head.

"This is dreadful." Told Daeron, trying his best to feign sympathy.

"Thank you, your Grace." Answered suavely the High Septon. The damnable priest had evidently waited for such an answer to come out of his mouth.

"But I'm afraid this was only the beginning of the atrocities these blasphemous traitors committed on the Faithful." Continued the High Septon. "Once they had slain most of the innocent, the barbarians took Lucos and his most faithful supporters and then ripped them apart. Then they spilled their entrails on several trees, to manifest their worship in false deities!"

Daeron wanted nothing better to scream and swear one or two insults. For all its atrocities made by the Blacks and the Greens, the war had remained a conflict thankfully void of any religious doctrinal problems. There had been warriors fighting not believing in the Seven, the Essossi of the Three Sisters came to mind, but at no moment there had been clashes because one side hated the Gods of the other. Given the violence of the battles and the scale of destruction, it was a good thing. The last thing Westeros had needed was a religious war on top of everything else.

At least until this afternoon.

 _Northerners. It had to be Northerners. No one else considers spilling the entrails of an alive enemy on a tree is a valid method of worship._

"Don't fear, your Holiness." Grumbled in his large beard the Hand of the King, Lord Borros Baratheon. The Lord of Storm's End, in spite of this being the royal court, was in plate armour, with only the antlered helmet removed. How he had managed to stand all these hours on the throne's right with this weight of steel on his shoulders and the rest of his body, Daeron had no idea."Soon, these murderous black scums will be corpses rotting on the battlefield. Me and my army are going to make sure of that!"

Had it been politically possible to kick the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands in the head, Daeron would have done so in a hurry. Alas, Lord Borros was a giant taller than him by several feet, but he was also the father of his own wife. Arianne would certainly not invite him in the bed this night if he dishonoured her father in view of the whole court.

"This abominable act will not go unpunished. Once the culprits are in the hand of the Royal Justice" Daeron spoke before Lord Borros made promises the Crown would regret in the next years, making great care to mark each word with the emphasis they deserved, "they will receive the full sentence demanded by their many crimes." Execution by decapitation. No need to bother with a trial for the Blacks, given the absolute certainty they wouldn't bother with one if the situation was reversed.

Most of his small council to his side made little noises of agreement, but did not offered more support. Grand Maester Orwyle had plunged in a sort of torpor. Lord Durran Grandison and Lord Unwin Peake were once again informally showing they were agreeing with his father-in-law. Ser Tyland Lannister was whispering something angrily to himself, an alarming occurrence since his torture experience. And Lord Larys Strong, Master of Whisperers, remained as enigmatic and silent as ever.

"And the rumours the Blacks intend to convert to the Old Gods of the Northern barbarians?"

The question had been posed in a near-innocent voice, but Daeron was not fooled. This was most likely the real reason the High Septon had bothered to leave his stalwart supporters from whatever sept in Westeros he had been elevated.

"The Crown will be hearing these rumours with the greatest attention." Promised Daeron. "Rest assured however, that no matter the heresies done by the Blacks, I King Daeron I Targaryen remained strong and dedicated to the worship of the true Faith!"

A huge clamour of applauses mounted from the nobles and courtiers gathered around to hear the audience. The High Septon bowed largely, apparently satisfied, before taking three steps back. Too bad this mummer farce on the Iron Throne was useless.

No, Daeron did not fear the Blacks were going to abandon the Seven as a religion anytime soon. No matter what the Starks, the Blackwoods, the Boltons and their bannersmen wanted, they were as many if not more Faithful in their armies. House Manderly of White Harbor. House Arryn of the Eyrie. House Tully of Riverrun. House Rowan of Goldengrove. The Seven were entrenched everywhere in Westeros, even in Dorne, which wasn't part of the Seven Kingdoms in the first place.

It would have required a very stupid man to make a mistake uniting tens of thousands men, women and children against himself, and for all his faults, Daeron did not think the new enemy Hand, Lord Cregan Stark was such a man.

As the High Septon withdrew from the Red Keep with his large group of septons and septas, Daeron thought with bitterness winning the war was probably going to be easier than settling all the problems caused by it.

 **Lord Larys Strong**

It was raining.

His father Lyonel, the Seven bless his soul, had often said that in the Riverlands, heavy rains tended to fall at the approaches of the great battles.

For Larys, this was not a good omen.

From his secret post near the Gate of the Gods, what was falling from the skies was a true deluge.

The Blackwater had already left its riverbed, flooding of its musky waters the Fishmarket, the Mud Gate and the northern extremities of the Kingswood. The waters were dark, carrying along countless debris, wood branches, stubbles, straw and substances it was best knowing not to know exactly what they were. Drinking this was...not advised in Larys's honest opinion. Several roads frequently used by farmers and merchants to come to the city sell their harvests had disappeared under the water. Awful weather.

But Larys had not taken one of the numerous secret passages out of Maegor's holdfast to see the rain fall or the large quantities of mud surrounding the capital. No, the Master of Whisperers had come to see the soldiers.

From the start of the morning, or what passed for a morning in this rain swept up by violent and screaming winter winds, the massive Southern army of King Daeron had with difficulty left camp.

An enormous snake of iron, steel, flesh and blood. Metal, leather, hate and blood thirst. Long columns of swords and spears, axes and hammers. Marching in columns, first had come the skilled archers of the Marches. Then the levies of the Honeywine, smallfolk bloodied by the endless skirmishes and battles they had been forced to fight thorough the Reach to arrive to King's Landing. The heavy cavalry of the Hightower and Baratheon Houses, their horses trying their best to brave the equivalent of several water buckets per turn of hourglass on their heads. Light infantry of the Rainwood, heavy infantry of Storm's End, proud knights of the Seven.

These warriors together formed the last army the Greens would be able to put on the field before moons. Possibly years. The whispers of a new Rowan offensive had arrived to his ears by the agents he had left at Cider Hall, and while Larys dearly hoped the loyalists there would repulse the storm of swords coming from them, help would not come from this direction. Nor would it come from the Stormlands. Lord Borros Baratheon, this ferocious and merciless butcher, had glorified himself arriving with one full army, but the little rainbows he had in the Stormlands all said how depleted the Lord of Storm's End had left his ancestral lands.

That was what happened when you left an illiterate man without tax or money knowledge governing one of the Kingdoms. Plus raiders and pirates from Tyrosh still attempted to launch attacks on the coasts of the Dornish Sea.

Still, the Green army was two and thirty thousand men strong, even after leaving a garrison of four thousand armsmen to guard King's Landing against any conceivable attack. Close to five and ten thousand were Baratheon men or lords sworn to Storm's End. The seven and ten thousand remaining were Reachers, with a majority of Hightower bannersmen.

No Crownlords or Riverlanders. After the 'exploits' of Prince Aemond and Ser Criston Cole having led to the annihilation of the former's army and a series of massive massacres from the Golden Tooth to Crackclaw Point, the knights of said kingdoms had deserted the Green cause. Larys didn't blame them.

 _How did it come to this? How did we manage to ruin the kingdom in three years?_

Larys knew the answer. Two words. Targaryen madness. Two little words which had ravaged the realm and caused so many deaths the Lord of Harrenhal doubted anyone would ever know how many persons had been killed during this war. Larys personal try was four hundred and seventy-five thousand. It was certainly below the real number.

The Masters of Whisperers knew he had a large part in these deaths. Enough to know his final destination when he died would not be the Seven Heavens.

 _But we hadn't the choice. We couldn't leave Daemon Targaryen sit on the throne. This monster would have torn apart everything._

Unlike many lords and knights, Larys had sent agents everywhere in the search of the truth long before King Viserys I agonised. Of course, one might argue he had better reasons than most to act in this manner. His father and his brother had died at Harrenhal in a fire that shouted high and loud murder.

What Larys had discovered using all his artifices of spymaster had frozen him in the marrow his bones beyond his worst nightmares. Prince Daemon Targaryen had assassinated Larys older sibling and his father, hiring a score of sellsword to light the fire. Laenor Velaryon, Rhaenyra's husband, had been too murdered on Daemon's orders. Ser Lomar Staunton, missing at sea never to be seen again. Ser Aemon Celtigar, gone hunting a boar and never come back. Ser Carnan Pyle, knocked out permanently by a jug in the head when a tavern became the site of a brawl. All these murders with the obvious goal of marrying Rhaenyra Targaryen and taking the throne for himself. Not to mention his private war in the Stepstones, his 'duels' against opponents having no experience in wielding a sword or the corruption spread under his watch in the King's Landing guards.

Larys had tried to get enough evidence to sentence Daemon to death. In vain. Daemon was a formidable enemy, and hadn't stayed alive all these years against the Triarchy and thousands of enemies without learning a thing or two to cover his traces. Not to mention Mysaria, Daemon's Lysene lover. And the magical tricks the two had gained with Essossi warlocks and magical outlaws.

If Daemon had been a common knight or lord, the proofs Larys had gathered would have seen the rider of Caraxes dance at the end of a rope. But Daemon was a Prince of the Blood. Deductions, indirect proofs and low-born witnesses could not be used against a member of the Royal family. At least that had been King Viserys I's declaration.

A decision having condemned Westeros to the night and disaster. And now winter was coming, like the Starks always warned.

A throbbing pain manifested in his right leg, forcing Larys to take support on his cane. The Master of Whisperers grimaced. At four and forty namedays, he was far from his youth, and now the rains were painful by their simple presence.

 _Perhaps it is a divine retribution for my sins._

The thought somewhat amused him. Retribution for what? Protecting Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen in her childhood from the litany of catastrophic actions she had made? Stopping Prince Aemond Targaryen from being a kinslayer and a mass murderer? Giving King Aegon II good advice?

Larys had done his best. He had done his duty to the realm. As confessor of King Viserys, the First of the Name. As Lord of Harrenhal. As Master of Whisperers. As spy, confident, advisor, manipulator, schemer and, when times called for it, assassin. But he was the Clubfoot, the mysterious enigmatic man in the shadows. No one trusted him, and his advices most often than not when ignored. When he had taken the post, it had bothered him a lot. Now, Larys was taking it as an accomplished fact.

Take the case of the starting campaign. Seeing a score of Swann infantry lamentably wading in the mud, any decent military commander could tell you fighting in these conditions was an idiotic idea. Autumn was well-advanced and the freezing winds told winter would not be long in strangling the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

By simple logic, launching a campaign in these conditions fell into a strategy of despair.

Which wasn't far from the truth.

Larys had seen the numbers presented by Ser Tyland Lannister. They were bad. Worse, the mutilated Lannister thought they were probably too good to be true. And if there was a thing the Lannisters understood, it was gold and how to spend it. Better to hear with complete attention when the brother of the defunct Lord of Casterly Rock had told them starvation was going to be an ugly reality in a matter of moons. Already, the order had completely collapsed in several provinces. The Westerlands were a charnel-house, thanks to Dalton Greyjoy and his reavers. Villages had been razed by the hundreds. Columns of refugees marched and pillaged, often turning on each other for a piece of bread.

There were only two solutions. First, proposing peace to the Blacks. Lord Corlys Velaryon had been in favour, but the old Master of Driftmark had been the only one. The hate between the two factions was now well and truly rooted.

Secondly, to force the Blacks forces to a decisive battle. Larys had been very dubious it was possible, but Lord Borros Baratheon had taken some of his own agents' reports at face's content, and estimated it was feasible to intercept the Arryn reinforcements landing at Maidenpool after their sea travel in the Bay of Crabs. Should the Starks and the Tullys musters try to make a stand all the better according to the Baratheon lord. Lord Durran Grandison had agreed it was the opportunity to crush the whole rebellion in one big battle.

Larys thought the two Stormlanders lords were arrogant imbeciles. Lord Mooton had turned his cloak because of Rhaenyra Targaryen's madness. For a new young Queen, one of sound sanity and advised by skilled lords, Lord Manfryd the Poor Traitor would turn his cloak back to the Blacks. It may have already happened.

However, Lord Borros and his bannersman had been enough convincing or told enough strategic evidences to the King for Daeron to give his consent. Larys didn't see how in the Seven Hells a single battle was going to make Winterfell, the Eyrie, Riverrun and Pyke beg for terms, but the King had decided to take the field with the last majority the Greens had, and that was it.

Two and thirty thousand men now marched in the mud and the rain for one of the biggest battles Westeros had ever seen. And at the end, Larys hoped, victory and the end of this terrible and bloody conflict.

Peace. When had this word become so...strange?

Over his head, a loud and powerful roar sounded. The rain hid everything not in the near vicinity, but the Master of Whisperers thought for an instant he had seen a flash of blue in the darkness. Too bad. The spectacle of a dragon flying was one the Lord of Harrenhal had never been weary of. And Tessarion, the Blue Queen and actual Royal Dragon, was really a magnificent specimen, with wings, scales and fire-breath cobalt blue coloured. The crest, claws and belly showed a shade of copper, though. A new roar echoed in the distance, but Tessarion was invisible to his mortal eyes. Next to the ramparts, the knights and men-at-arms of House Connington could be perceived, forming the rear-guard of the army.

Larys shook his head and stopped watching the army's march northwards. All his worries for the fate of the upcoming campaign were fruitless. He had never been a warrior; his illnesses and his malformation in the feet had made sure of that. No, the fate of the war was not going to be in Larys weak hands. What the Master of Whisperers could and would do, was making plans to ensure there would be a capital and a kingdom if King Daeron came back victorious.

Contrary to what everyone in the good taverns of Visenya' Hill thought it was far from an easy task. In the last fortnight alone, three assassins had been tortured and killed before they attempted to kill Princess Jaehaera Targaryen, King Daeron's niece. Larys had recognised the malevolent work of Lord Unwin Peake on that one. The Lord of Starpike was a dead man, the Master of Whisperers had given the orders. A friendly arrow in the midst of battle is so easy to arrange after all.

More concerning were the maesters attempts to poison the dragons. The grey beards thought they were very clever and subtle, but they were playing in Larys battlefield. Bypassing Grand Maester Orwyle, weakening the structure of the Dragonpit, hiring these dragonslayers in the middle of the riots...clever. Clever but not enough. Larys had put the dragon eggs in security, and the elimination of the black sheep was going to start. Their ends were going to be as dolorous as the magnitude of their betrayal.

Westeros had been united in the fire of dragons, and only the dragons maintained the unity of the Seven Kingdoms. If the price of the realm was to be the Archmaesters lives, so be it. If a Master of Whisperers had to shed torrents of blood and blacken his soul, so be it. So long as the realm survived, the price was acceptable.

"The things I do for the realm..." Whispered the Clubfoot, as the rain redoubled in intensity. The Lord of Harrenhal donned his black cloak, took a last hold on his wooden cane, and threw a last glance at the torrential rains before disappearing in the tunnels.

 _You were right Father. Great rains call for great battles. Winter is coming, but before, I'm going to make sure the dragons will dance again in the skies._


	3. Dawn of the Battle

**Chapter 3**

 **Dawn of the Battle**

 **Lord Cregan Stark**

"They are coming."

The voice of Lord Wallis Mooton was tired and had hints of despair in it. At five and forty name days, the new Lord of Maidenpool had never been a robust knight, and now he looked like he had lost a score of stones recently. Loss of a brother devoured by a dragon and being forced to change sides twice tended to do that. His blue eyes however, were much more expressive and reflected a pure feeling of sheer fear.

"How many?" Asked Lord Cregan Stark, finishing his cup of wine in a grim expression. The Warden of the North had been having dinner in the private quarters of his host, when a messenger in Tully colours had regretfully interrupted their eating of the few eggs in their plates, saying his liege lord had sent him with dire news.

And dire they were. Perhaps as indigestible as the meal they were having. In the weak light of this rainy day, the wine drunk took a nearly black light.

 _It almost looks like blood. It has the taste too._

Mooton lands and the Riverlands in general had never been renowned to produce good wine, but the days where a Black leader could sip good Dornish or Arbor bottles were over. Too many wine-makers had been in the Reach, which meant either it had been burnt or was in the hands of Hightower bannersmen. Dorne was too far away, and the sea lanes were too dangerous this year. In peace time, the best barrels were worth their weight in gold at the table of Kings, Archons, Magisters and Lords Paramounts. How much they were costing now that war raged everywhere?

"Ser Gustav told me there couldn't be more than two hundred of them." Lord Wallis laughed bitterly. "What a fool! Lord Kermit has sent his own men, and they're all singing a different tale. Eight and twenty thousand men, they counted! And not the green levies of King's Landing! All the banners of the Stormlands are here, and the Hightower have sent their own men too!"

The Lord of Winterfell narrowed his eyes. Every lord and knight worth the name had known a new Green army was assembling at King's Landing. That they had chosen to march northwards was not a surprise. But their numbers were quite larger than any of his spies had reported. Eight and twenty thousand was a massive army by any standard, and if they had the Baratheon and Hightower heavy cavalry with them...

"How much time do we have?" The Warden of the North demanded.

"I don't know." Sighed Wallis. "With good weather, the cavalry could be here within five or six days. But with the rains we have and the infantry...I don't know. Ten days at least. Maybe longer."

The Northern and the River lord exchanged silent glances, more valuable than any discussion. Finally, it was Wallis who spoke again.

"My Lord Hand, Maidenpool is not a castle easy to defend..."

"I know what you're going to say, Lord Wallis." Cut the Master of Winterfell. "Rest assured I have no wish to fight a battle in the streets of your city."

 _If a city is the correct name_ , reflected ironically Cregan. _There were many reasons the Targaryens kings didn't give it a chart._

Truth to tell, Maidenpool had never been that big a settlement, and it was only the flow of refugees coming from every part of the Riverlands that had allowed the Mooton holdfast to have their small village grown larger in the last couple of years.

But seen another way, these sudden arrivals had not been followed by the construction of walls, towers, gates and others defences against soldiers turned marauders. The forces of House Mooton had been considered enough to discourage the odd sellsword or two and the starved bandits plaguing the region. Maidenpool was a collection of small houses in the mud where smallfolk were crowded in their haste to escape the huge rains plaguing the Riverlands in the last moons. Narrow streets where men killed for a piece of bread. Leaking roofs the inhabitants desperately tried to repair. A situation no doubt repeated endlessly around the Riverlands. Only the small castle was a reliable construction in stone.

 _No, a battle inside Maidenpool would end in our defeat. We will have to choose another place to fight them. But where?_

"I heard three other Vale transports arrived today." The new Hand of the Queen deliberately changed the subject of the conversation.

"Yes." The answer of Wallis was curt, forcing Lord Cregan to raise an eyebrow in a simple request to say more. "Three hundred men of House Melcolm, with Ser Allyn Melcolm in command."

"Ser Allyn? Not Lord Harlan?"

"Lord Harlan stayed at home." Cregan noticed Wallis did his best not to spit on the ground. "He was always scarred to enter his own tourneys, he's not going to leave Old Anchor and play the knight!"

"Hmm...this gives us...four hundred and six thousand men of the Vale?

"Six hundred and five thousand." Corrected the Mooton lord. "There are two hundred men of House Tollett who arrived when you were gone meeting Lord Vance yesterday."

"Ah, those. The Dark Omen has decided to regale us of his presence and his grim prophecies?"

"You know how Lord Eon Tollett is." Puffed Wallis, with the tone of a man who had indeed heard too much death predictions and other nasty demises waiting for him at the corner of a dark corridor.

"I know."

The reputation of House Tollett as doomsayers, pessimistic rumourmongers and bringers of bad luck had been firmly rooted well before the Targaryens had decided to settle on Dragonstone. Centuries later, this tradition had continued and the current lord of the Grey Glen was no exception. 'When All is Darkest' was the motto of this Vale House, and the Tolletts lived and died by it. Ironically, their joining with their Gods often happened at extremely advanced ages and in their beds, not by the dagger of an assassin, a sword on the battlefield or a poison in their ale.

"I don't see Lady Arryn sending a lot more, my lord Hand." Said the black-haired River lord with unease showing in the manner he rubbed his own hands. "With Tessarion's survival, the Vale coast is vulnerable to dragons' attacks."

"You have a point." Whispered the Lord Paramount of the North. "But I can't rejoice at the idea of being outnumbered at the eve of what will be perhaps the greatest battle of this war."

Spared by the war, the Vale could have easily mustered fourteen thousand men and transported them to Maidenpool with the help of the young Velaryon's Black fleet. Six thousand was a good number, but it was much, much less than the reinforcements Cregan had hoped receiving. And to make matters worse, a lot of it was infantry, not cavalry. Cregan didn't share the certainty of the Reach horse-masters who believed a good knight could smash and kill any living enemy, but a mounted man provided the best armour and the greatest mobility on the battlefield, even in the current horrible weather conditions. Save for the symbols of House Targaryen.

The appearance of the dragon nicknamed the Blue Queen over King's Landing had been widely reported, and Cregan would not be dishonest in saying he had not shouted a long series of curses when he had received this information. Some Blacks soldiers, in overwhelming majority green Vale levies, had tried to desert and a few examples had had to be made. The only warriors to be happy were the Northerners and Riverlanders survivors of the two Tumbleton battles. For them, killing Tessarion was one more chance to pay back the Greens for their treachery in the first battle of the Reach city when the Two Betrayers attacked and burnt them in the back.

Lord Wallis Mooton emitted a small smile, before watching the lone egg in his plate with a disgusted expression.

"Do you want me to send messengers to all commanders for a new war council?"

The Lord of Winterfell thoughtfully nodded, but his own attention was fixed on the weather outside the dungeon of Maidenpool. The sky was a black-purple colour, and the rain which had started five days ago showed no intention to stop any time soon.

"Definitely. The Queen has to be informed, and all the lords prepared for the march. Can I count on you to free your Hall for all the captains before nightfall?"

"It will be my pleasure."

There were other reasons to summon everyone, and by Wallis's pinched smile, the Lord of Maidenpool was aware of them. Cregan could have limited the war council to the Queen, one or two commanders and himself. To discuss tactics and strategy, it would have been perfect. There quite a few Vale lords that in his mind had not their place at the great table. Lord Corbray or Lord Lynderly, to quote names and point fingers. But he could not afford to ignore their voices. Or rather he could, but the shadow of what had happened to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, forced to sell her crown because she had cruelly driven each of her bannersmen away, was too fresh in the spirits and the mind.

The North had the biggest army left of all the Blacks lords present with twelve thousand men, but the Stark and Northern numbers were largely below the storm of Southern steel coming for them. The North was going to need every sword and spear of the Rivers and the Vale to win. There were five thousand swords of the Riverlords here in Maidenpool, plus the remnants of the loyal Black Lords in the Crownlands who had escaped north. It had to count for something. No matter how idiotic and treacherous some loud-mouthed knights were.

 _This why you took a Bolton to the South, no Cregan?_ Thought the Lord of Winterfell to himself. _So stop complaining and get to work. You have a battle to win, a Queen to test and a realm to govern._

"I will also have a task for all the outriders we have in the field." Added almost absently Cregan.

"And whose task will it be?" The voice of Lord Wallis could not have been described as very reassured.

Cregan made a smile, which, by the way it made the other lord shiver, had managed very well to give the predatory allure of the direwolf running freely on the banners of his troops.

"Why, finding a place where we can bleed and kill the Green Army, of course."

 **Queen Baela Targaryen**

The crown, a simple diadem of dragon-shaped gold encircling a large ruby, weighted heavily on her head. At the moment of her coronation, it had seemed so light and beautiful. Now, the young Black Queen honestly started to loath the royal object posed on her head.

When she had been seven, Baela remembered to have asked with her sweet sister Rhaena to be princesses to their father. Or Queens. The memory was so long ago, it was difficult to remember. Their father had made them mount Caraxes and fly over Dragonstone, in a sky shiny and blue. After that both Rhaena and she had wanted to be dragonriders.

 _It looks like a dream now._

The last time she had seen Dragonstone, the garrison of the fortress was killing each other, giving a bloody funeral to the King Baela had just sent into its last dive. Sunfyre had crushed the usurper Aegon, avenging the deaths of Meleys and her grandmother Rhaenys. Baela remembered the joy she had felt, how she had been persuaded to have won the war by her skill at archery.

Now she was the Queen. And the war was far from over.

 _How the Gods must laugh at me_.

From the moment she woke up to the moment she went to bed, Baela had not a moment to her anymore.

 _I have barely the time to visit my Moondancer. I don't have any time to do anything what I want_!

Hearing her advisors discuss about the state of the food granaries, the merchants how depleted the stock of arrows were, dispensing justice, punishing traitors. An army of maidens from the Vale had come with her, and passed hours to dress her in richly expensive dresses. Baela had not wanted this. The eldest daughter of Laena Velaryon wanted to ride in the sky, pass time with her little sister, invent stories where they were great dragonriders.

Instead of that, she was stuck here, at the head of a long table in the Great Hall of Maidenpool, listening scores of lords bickering and babbling about non-sense which had nothing to do with the war. Lord Elesham was shouting something to Lord Pryor about fishing rights! Fishing rights! There were thousands of Greens traitors marching for Maidenpool at this very moment and these idiots were concerned about fishing rights! At least Rhaena was safe. Her little sister was in security at Gulltown with her newborn dragon Morning, in order for the Blacks to have a secure succession in case she died at war.

 _I didn't want to be Queen. I didn't want all my family to die._

When she had arrived to Harrenhal on Moondancer, Baela had hoped against all hopes her father had survived. These hopes had perished. None of the knights and sworn swords having assisted to the aerial fight had seen a man emerge out of the waters where the two great dragons Caraxes and Vhagar had crashed. The dragon of Prince Daemon, her beloved father, had come out of the God's Eye, but it had been only to die on the shore.

No, her father was dead. Like her mother. Like her cousins. Like her aunt. King's Landing, Rook's Rest, the Gullet, Storm's End were as many dreadful tales of defeat and bloodshed. Even brave Addam Velaryon, freshly legitimised when Lord Corlys asked for this favour of Queen Rhaenyra, was gone forever on his Seasmoke. Of Baela cousins, only Addam's brother Alyn was left. And none of the rare survivors carried the Targaryen name.

 _Rhaena and I are alone now._

Looking around her, this impression of loneliness didn't go away. The great lords assembled ignored her, arguing, debating, screaming, laughing, and grumbling. The huge mass named Lord Tomard Umber was emptying cups after cups of ale like it was water, drinking songs of debauchery with a voice able to wake up the dead. Lord Benedict Piper was busy putting large quantities of chicken and sweets in his mouth while everyone else had finished eating several turns of hourglasses ago, a behaviour against most common manners. Lord Allard Donniger had forced a servant girl to sit on his lap and was touching her chest and her bosom, under the encouragement acclamation of his friends. Repugnant. Did they think it was an action the Seven took solace on or were they simply too drunk?

In fact, Baela realised, there were only two persons in the entire Hall who looked directly at her. Namely, Lord Cregan Stark and Lord Robard Bolton. The young Queen was not sure who she had the most to be afraid of. The Dreadfort master had an empty look in his eyes and gaunt face, the man did not manifest any violent emotions, but there was...something, a lack of light in his eye which was present in every man or woman in Westeros. But not with him. Not Lord Bolton. And Cregan Stark, the man she had named her Hand after the lords proposed their preferred candidate, was also searching for weaknesses. In public, the Starks were the very appearance of courtesy, so flattering a Tyrell would not have found anything to naysay. But under these grey eyes, there was something dangerous. The direwolf was sleeping, but for how long? Then there was the little matter of this Pact of Ice and Fire Jacaerys had concluded at Winterfell and the conduct of the Northern troops so far...

Baela had heard the stories thorough the camps. How the men of 'Septon Luceon' had been murdered, after they surrendered. Traitors and assassins, she would not have shed a tear for these fanatics, but how they had been slain... Mutilated, dismembered, their entrails spread on trees as offerings for the Old Gods. How villages after villages which had helped the Greens were razed or stormed, their smallfolk massacred or pursued thorough the night.

 _And the Starks forbid them to flay their victims centuries ago. How much savage were the Boltons before bending the knee to Winterfell?_

This what not a question Baela was sure she wanted the answer for. Maybe in a decade, but not now. Riding Moondancer to the Vale and then to Harrenhal, she had seen how much devastation the war had caused. The Seven Kingdoms were burning, piles of corpses so high in some places, others impaled on pikes and the terrible scars left by dragonfire. There was no need to think more on the Boltons and their atrocities.

Looking back to the great table, the tone started to mount. On one side a minor Vale knight had thrown an insult, and the River knight in Bracken colours who had just been to told to...do heinous things to goats was reddening and looked ready to draw his sword.

 _It's time to stop this mummery and plan for war. But how can I command them?_

Except Lady Mooton sitting with her husband on the left, there was only woman of noble birth gracing the hall of its presence. Alysanne Blackwood, the commander of the archers coming from the Riverlands. But she was the only one. Otherwise, just men of all sizes, some in light armour, other in leather, the majority in fine tunics. No women except the smallfolk servants. None but Baela.

Her voice would not be enough to be heard in all this rumble. Half of the captains and lords present were drunk and the other half brayed so loudly it was a miracle the hall was still standing. As for Lord Stark and Bolton on her right, they would be of no help. The two Northerners looked at her with the piercing stares a predator regards the sheep he's going to make his dinner. Which left only one option. To scare them.

 _I am not a sheep. I am a dragon._

Exhaling a loud breath, Baela closed her eyes and searched for the connection inside herself linking her to her bonded. Warmth. Fury. Love. Anger. One ray of light guided her to the depths of heart, and suddenly the presence was here. The bond was complete.

 _I am here my Dancer._

A storm of powerful emotions rushed in her. Suddenly, Moondancer was here in her head and she was in the she-dragon. Both felt the other emotions. Baela had the blood of the cow her dragon had eaten in the morning. The young Queen felt the playfulness, heard the rain falling on the great tent where Moondancer was kept.

 _Come, my Dancer. Come to me._

Moondancer felt her amusement and rose from her position on the ground, before getting out of the tent in the rain and flying in the rain, making the soldiers guarding it gasp and shout, muffled acclamations her bonded ignored.

If Moondancer had been bigger, what Baela ordered her magnificent she-dragon to wouldn't have been possible. The same if Maidenpool had been a bigger castle or the corridors arranged directly. But the Great Hall was directly at the entrance, and the great doors allowing access to it were fully open.

One in four or five of the lords present noticed the new arrival. The others not so much. The ceiling was high and dark. The crowd of lords and knights was drunken or not taking great attention to their surroundings. Until Moondancer landed swiftly behind her, her sinuous body curling behind her seat while her head was close enough for Baela to pet her.

 _Now, roar my Dancer._

And Moondancer roared, a shout so full of threat and power, a primal cry repeated during centuries, dominating and pressing. The Black Queen felt her ears tingle and her heart beat incredibly faster.

Silence fell instantly in the hall.

"Enough." Baela used her best queenly voice. "You have enough debated. It's time we march against the traitors' army."

"They have more men than us!" Protested a man with a black fish on his chest, his face red of all the ale he had drunk.

"And?" Shouted Lord Tomard Umber, rousing from his seat, and dropping the last cup he had been about to drink. "These Southrons will always have more men than us! Their knights are so bad and their weapons so weak they NEED the numbers!"

A loud acclamation mounted from half the room to support this affirmation. The other half did not look convinced at all.

"What worries me," said a bearded knight in Corbray colours coughing and taking a second before speaking again. "There's no castle or good defensive position between Maidenpool and Duskendale."

"Ser Malcolm is right." Grumbled Lord Lynderly. "By now, the Darklyns should have bent the knee and surrendered their city. We will need to ambush them on the road, and the Fish Road is no terrain for that."

"And the Greens have Tessarion." Added a young man with a winged silver chalice on a pink field. "We will not be able to ambush them. Dragons see everything from the sky."

None of the three Vale men, Baela noticed had taken more than a look in her direction. They talked to the other lords, not to her. It was like she didn't exist. Baela felt her fists tightening and forced herself to smile.

"That's not true, I think." Remarked a Northerner with the grey eyes and the brown hair of the Starks, but the colours of a white sun on a black field. "The rains have been terrible these last days. A dragon may be able to see far in the distance when it flies, but with the weather we have it will be searching a needle in a haystack."

"Good Gods, Karstark!" Told Lord Lynderly. "A dragon is not blind! Do you really believe we can hide the march of twenty thousand men in the mud? I know we can't!"

"Then we offer battle!" Shouted Lord Umber, the ale and all the alcohol drunk having evidently warmed him up. Plenty of Riverlords and his fellow Northerners bayed in agreement.

"And how do you intend to slay Tessarion, Lord Umber? With your big sword?"

"I will deal with Tessarion." Affirmed Baela, cutting the fruitless discussion before it started to go back to insults and quarrels. "Distract her and point her with arrows until the course of battle is decided."

 _Or one of us has fallen._

"Your Grace, I do not think this is a good idea..." Said an auburn-haired middle-aged knight with a green tree for emblem.

"Why, Ser?" Baela asked. "If you have some miraculous weapon to strike down a dragon, please explain."

"The River warriors managed to slay one at Tumbleton." It was a weak answer, and every warrior listening was well aware of it.

"No." Intervened Lord Benjicot Blackwood, a young boy who was the only commander younger than Baela herself in the Maidenpool gathering. "We ended a dying dragon, on the ground, when it was already bleeding with broken wings. To do it to a mobile, healthy one...in the sky...I do not like our chances."

"That remains a risky adventure, your Grace. Tessarion and the Usurper Daeron will be formidable enemies." The man who had spoken had done it so fast and remained safely out of her vision, due to that Baela had no idea who had spoken.

 _Thank you, Ser. I had never realised a dragon battle was dangerous._

"It's a battle Moondancer and I are willing to fight." Affirmed the young Queen, trying to show assurance and calm while she was not sure she felt either. Fortunately Moondancer roared to agree with her, heartening her resolve by her shout and the bond.

"It solves the problem of Tessarion, but not the battlefield itself." Reminded Lord Kermit Tully. The Lord of Riverrun was really recognisable with his brilliant red hair and his blue eyes. An attractive young man until you looked in the depth of his eyes and learnt what he did on the battlefield. Baela knew Lord Kermit loathed the Greens, and had put the heads of several Westerlands commanders on stakes over the gates of his home. "I want to kill the traitors, not be killed by them."

"I have a proposition."

Everyone turned to contemplate Lord Cregan Stark. Until then, the Lord of Winterfell had not spoken a single word in the conversation, but evidently from the manner a third of the assembly fell silent, it had been a ploy carefully prepared.

The Lord of Winterfell unrolled a map in front of Baela, one which described a lot the Crownlands area between the Antlers and Rook's Rest.

"Our scouts affirm there is a bridge three days south on the Fish Road, shortly after the intersection of the path leading to the Antlers." Explained the Warden of the North, pointing his finger at a sort of mark which could have been anything.

"I know the place you're speaking about." Lord Wallis Mooton, their host and perhaps the most knowledgeable lord on the terrain conditions, said. "There is a small hill and a sizeable grove nearby."

"How many horses can pass on that bridge at the same time?" Asked a Riverlander whose name escaped Baela.

"No more than four on the march. In battle, two or three depending on the conditions." Replied the Lord of Maidenpool, biting his lower lip in reflexion.

"Can this bridge be bypassed?" The question came from a man with a lot of runes on his decorated armour.

To Baela's surprise, it was one of her own Kingsguard, solemn in their pale white armour and lined up against the wall behind her who answered.

"Not really. There's a small riverbed on two or three leagues there, isn't it?"

"Yes, in summer there isn't much water, enough to wet the feet of the horses, but not much more I think. With all these rains however, the river must be flooding." Approved Lord Mooton.

"The Greens will be forced to take the bridge." Grumbled a Northerner so fat it was a minor miracle if a single horse in Westeros and Essos could bear his weight. Maybe an elephant would be his mount of choice? Her father had described her once the large grey beasts. "Any villages, nearby? We will need supplies if the traitors don't come to us."

"No, they were all razed by Vhagar." The bitter admission had come from one of the rare Crownlands having survived the fighting of the year 130. Baela sighed. One more sin to add to the endless list of crimes of the kinslayer Aemond.

In spite of this logistic issue, the plan of Lord Cregan seemed to have the favour of the most powerful lords and knights.

 _Or perhaps he explained them his plan behind closed doors._

Baela had no knowledge of military tactics, but all the Riverlords and half of the Vale captains really rallied fast to the plan of her Hand. Suspiciously fast. Too fast. Perhaps the plan was that good and the Northerners of course would support their liege lord. But seeing the sour face of Lord Lynderly, it was likely Lord Stark was weakening his Vale rivals. For exactly what grand plan remained to be discovered, not that it mattered much to Baela.

 _If only I trusted one of them. But I don't. I can't._

Moondancer and she had learnt this lesson painfully. A lot of men on Dragonstone had been servants of her family during years...and they had betrayed the Black cause. They had betrayed her, for wealth and honour. They had broken their oaths, decades of service to bend the knee to the Usurper Aegon.

The men currently seating and preparing for battle inside Maidenpool, with the exception of the Riverlords and the last Crownlords, had arrived after three years of war. Three years during which each sword could have made a difference, but they only arrived when the majority of the Targaryen dragons were dead.

 _Until they have proved their loyalty, I see no reason to trust them._

The discussion continued, long and very boring. Moondancer had to roar twice to restore order in the hall until finally the general plan was approved by every participant of high rank.

"Is it to your satisfaction, your Grace?" The voice of the Lord of Winterfell was cheerful; Baela thought it might as well be, even if the smile of the Northerner was indecent and remembered her too much one of the Dragonstone cats eating one of those big, fat Summer Islands birds. The ones which had yellow feathers.

"Yes, it is, my Lord Hand." Baela was relieved this meeting was very much over. "By the way what is the name of the place?"

"Bosworth Bridge, you Grace." Lord Mooton was not looking cheerful at all at the idea of going to battle at that location.

"Bosworth Bridge." Repeated Baela in a low tone.

"MILORDS!" Screamed Lord Umber. The massive Lord of Last Hearth's patience had come to an end. "I RISE MY CUP TO VICTORY...AND TO THE DAMNATION OF THE GREENS!"

One by one the men who had still a cup on the table and were sober enough to raise it imitated him, shouting and causing sufficient chaos to be heard from King's Landing itself.

Baela raised her golden cup and for the first time of the evening, drank the wine. The young Queen had to make a large effort not to spit it out immediately.

 _God the taste is awful._


	4. The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part I

**Chapter 4**

 **The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part I**

 **Lord Royce Caron**

"They are at the ford too, your Grace."

Silence came into the royal tent as the lords and famous knights digested the news and the man who had brought them.

The messenger in Hightower colours had a miserable appearance. The young man had had his brown hair completely drenched, his tunic and the rest of his clothes were so covered with mud the original colours had almost disappeared under the brown-black of the earth. In fact, if Royce didn't know this particular messenger for his regular appearances in the royal tent, guessing the House he was sworn to would have been impossible. All thanks to this damn mud.

Royce watched as several Baratheon bannersmen guffawed and joked at the decrepit appearance of the Hightower scout. Nice of them to ignore half of the army was in the same dirty condition if not in a worse state.

"Good." Grumbled Lord Borros Baratheon. Royce's liege lord had been a massacring humour each time in the last five days desultory skirmishes happened. Of course, wearing the huge plate armour in these weather conditions at all time of day and night had not improved his mood. "Now we are going to smash them!"

Looking at the Master of Storm's End, Royce saw something dark lurking in these blue eyes. Inwardly, the Lord of Nightsong shivered. In the tents, he had heard these past nights some of his own sworn swords joke that Lord Borros knew no other mistress than war. In the royal tent, seeing the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands ready to pounce like one of the big predators of the Marches...this wasn't funny at all. A bloodbath coming seemed to hearten him.

Ours is the Fury. The words of the Durrandon successors had never been more appropriate. Watching the whole tent and the small discussions in the background, Royce sighed. Lord Boremund, Borros's father, had been a reasonable and pleasant lord to swear fealty to. Of course, there had been no war save this trouble in the Stepstones during the reign of Jaehaerys and Viserys but still. Borros...Royce knew Borros was not a good lord. Always searching for some melees in tournaments to participate and whores to warm his bed. More than once, Royce had talked with Lord Swann and Lord Dondarrion how the taxes that went to Storm's End never came back since Lord Boremund had been buried. How the roads leading to their castles needed to be repaired with their own private funds because the merchants coming from Dorne and the Reach complained of Storm's End negligence. How some sellswords avoided the consequences of their actions making them no better than bandits just because one of them had been in the employ of Lord Borros. How alliances cultivated for the Game of Thrones, alliances forged with honour and long friendships, were discarded and replaced with ambitious and power-hungry knights.

And then the war had started and everything got more complicated. A lot of lords from the Stormlands, and Royce had to admit he had been among them, had expected to fight for the Black dragon in the conflict. The Hightowers were growing too powerful, too arrogant. The Reachers had never been too shy in making a lot of claims on the Stormlands in centuries pasts, and many had been in the Marches. If the Hightowers rise was not checked or contained, Nightsong and plenty of other lordships were going to find new masters before the end of this decade. Plus the Blacks had Prince Daemon, and the rider of Caraxes had been a warrior to be respected. Powerful. Charismatic.

Not like Prince, pardon King Aegon the Second of his name and his insane brother Aemond. One had had problems to find his way through his royal quarters without printed instructions and the other was a cruel and vicious beast. Too many people forgot the noble Aemond was trying to mark 'bastard' on the forehead of Prince Lucerys Targaryen like one marked an animal when his victim had stabbed him in the eye. A pity it had not killed him on the spot.

In retaliation, Aemond and Borros had conspired to kill whoever would come to Storm's End negotiate for the Stormlands swords. Prince Lucerys had died, and the realm had shed oceans of blood for it.

The good thing was that King Daeron seemed smarter than his two older brothers. Not that it was difficult to have more wits than the idiot who had amused himself to burn half of the realm and the granaries before winter came. Or their so-called 'glorious king' hidden on Dragonstone for half a year only to fall against a young girl fighting her first battle.

"The map, Lord Grandison."

Lord Caron temporarily abandoned these morose thoughts to see a good part of the most influential lords leave their seats and talks to close on the main campaign table.

Royce didn't even bothered stand up from his current place. Which good would it bring? He was a Stormlander, he had never been so far north in the Crownlands in his life, and he wasn't in Lord Borros good graces, in spite of his troops numbering eight hundred and one thousand.

No, at eight and forty name days, his time in the sun was over, no bad pun with the rainy weather intended. Maybe his eldest son Borric would be able to take back the prestige and the glory lost these last years once he was knighted and became the new Lord of the Marches. Royce was going to endure. Not much else to do.

The drawback, of course, was listening from outside the circle of lords and knights in deep conversation with the monarch made impossible to know the strategy for the next battle. Royce couldn't see the map, and the words coming from every mouth did not led to a clear and uniform tapestry.

"The swamps cover our right flank...just leave a blocking force there..."

"Maybe the infantry can cross at this point up north...sent a few of the Morrigen..."

"Our archers are better...let them take the bridge I say..."

"Only Corbray and Lynderly banners seen so far..."

"The whore is here...slay her dragon and everything is over..."

"How many horses can pass on this bridge?"

"This hill will be hard to take...best keep our cavalry in reserve."

"We don't know how many they are...prudent strategy..."

A score of minutes passed, and what little attention Royce had had for the king and his main advisors died of old age. He was able to share a few jokes and observations with Lord Shermer. The old man of Smithyton had been abandoned to the inglorious and endless task of the supplies lines. Today, the situation was good but Lord Shermer told him without detour it was probably because the army had grabbed everything eatable in the nearest village of...what was the name again? Something like Broken Wheel or such nonsense.

Bah, the village didn't exist anymore. Two farmers had protested their pigs and their cows being taken away, and been killed by Grandison armsmen. Their neighbours had formed a crowd and attacked to avenge them. Stupid. Pitchforks and other farm tools were good to discourage the lone outlaw, not against a score of companies at war. When Lord Durran Grandison had heard of this defiance, the Butcher of Grandview had taken a couple of hundred cavalry despite the rain, and went to raze the village to its foundations, its inhabitants all decapitated and their heads left on pikes for the crows.

 _Is there going to be anything left of the realm when the war will be over?_ Thought Royce. _Grandison is doing a fine job of destroying it_.

"They are calling it the Dance, you know." Told Lord Shermer, before being shaken a monumental series of coughs.

"Who is calling what?"

"This whole war. The bards I have with the baggage are starting to call it the Dance of the Dragons."

"Appropriate." _Though the dragons are not the only beings dancing to their deaths_.

The conversation continued to unimportant things, until the silence fell at the centre of the tent. Lord Baratheon and Lord Grandison positioned themselves on the right of the king, with most of the Storm's End bannersmen. On the left, the Reachers and the Oldtown supporters. The Crownlords divided themselves on every side. Grimacing, Royce marched at the other extremity of the tent.

"We have decided on a strategy." Announced the young Targaryen monarch.

For the first time since he had entered the tent, Royce Caron was able to see the map in its entirety. There were a lot of things not marked, although it detailed the Green camp and their own positions on this fortified hill with a commendable precision.

"This," said the King pointing to a large wooden point in the middle of the table, "is Bosworth Bridge. It is the fastest way we have to cross the river and march to Maidenpool. Lord Borros?"

"The right flank is looking like a huge swamp." Grumbled reluctantly the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands. "On this side, there is no easy way to cross. With this autumn rain, the small river is flooding and the ground is treacherous.

The other flank is better, with a small ford and the remnant of a crossing for the animals. It will be difficult for light infantry or cavalry to pass, and impossible for the heavies and the chariots, but it offer us a chance to launch an offensive here."

"Thank you Lord Borros. As you can see my lords, the best way to Maidenpool goes through Bosworth Bridge."

No voice came to contest this elocution. After all, why deny the simple truth?

"Unfortunately," the king spoke again after a minor break to underline the importance of the news, "the Blacks are here in force. On the other side of the bridge, our scouts have numbered nearly six hundred and a thousand pikes on guard. Banners besides the Black Dragon are those of Lynderly, Corbray, Tollett, Melcolm, Redfort and others."

Royce emitted a sign of grimace, and he wasn't the only one. In the last couple of years, the Vale contribution to the war effort had been very little. If he had to take a guess, Royce would bet the disdain Prince Daemon had felt for his Royce wife and the draconic threat of the Greens had pushed them to quasi-neutrality. Neutrality which had obviously ended. With the death of Prince Daemon and most of the dragons, the Arryns had sent their bannersmen out to battle.

Then the youngest son of the deceased King Viserys pointed to a point well positioned near the bridge. It was also coloured in black, like all the places where enemy soldiers had been sighted.

"This hill," explained King Daeron I, "is an excellent archer position for the defender. Our enemies have fortified it, there is a small cove not far from the road that they have cut wood to block the horses and make our progression more difficult. Blackwood, Mallister and Tully banners are flying over it. Estimates give them around eight hundred men, give or take. All with longbows."

Next to their sovereign, several old lords scowled. Royce understood their feelings. With the general conditions of the terrain from King's Landing to Maidenpool, taking this hill would have been already a hard deal. Damn the mud to the Seven Hells. With the sort of defences the Blacks had built, massacre was a gentle word for the losses the Greens would take in a straightforward attack.

"The rest of the Black army is positioned here, here and here." Affirmed a knight Royce wasn't able to remember the name nor the colours. The positions the man pointed were black square, one behind the heavy infantry of the Vale, one covering the right flank in front of the swamp, and of course one on the left to block any potential attack by the animal crossing. "Three and ten thousand swords and spears in all."

"That's a lot of men." Remarked someone in the back.

"A lot of untrained levies and infantry mustered in short order." Replied Lord Borros Baratheon in a condescending voice without bothering to turn his head. "We massively outnumber them and they have almost no cavalry. One hard kick, and they will run back home crying for their mothers."

Interestingly, King Daeron violet eyes narrowed a bit at that, and his next comments were like the former sentences had not been spoken.

"Lord Peake, taking the crossing on the left will force the Blacks to weaken their positions elsewhere. Your light cavalry is charged to dislodge the Karstark, Frey and Ryger infantry from their positions."

"Thank you, your Grace!" Beamed the Lord of Starpike.

"Lord Connington, the swamp is impossible to cross for cavalry, but we can fix the attention of the Blacks on it. Take your men, Lord Staedmon and Lord Morrigen archers, and bleed them.

"My men are ready, your Grace!" Replied the red-haired Stormlord. "They will know the fury of the Griffin!"

"Lord Baratheon and Lord Grandison, the attack of the centre is your responsibility. Take the bridge and the hill, and victory is certain."

"Yes, your Grace! I will bring you personally the head of the whore!"

"I will personally command the reserve behind you. Should the weather conditions allow it, I will bring Tessarion to burn the ranks of the enemy or fight my traitorous cousin. Lord Caron, you will be charged of the defence of the camp."

A wave of silent laughter echoed in the ranks of the lords and knights in the assembly. It didn't take a great deal of imagination to Royce to know he was the subject of this amusement.

Lord Borros Baratheon was smirking a light of triumph in his eyes. His blue eyes shone with malice. Durran Grandison to his side had the appearance of a beast which had just smelled the first smell of blood. Plenty of young lords and knights were imitating their liege lord. Pitiful. Some had even abandoned all restrain. The heir of Lord Morrigen was laughing at him directly, mocking him with force gestures and expressions.

 _Laugh boy, laugh_. Had Royce been crazy, he would have laughed too _. I have not seen the battlefield, but this is going to be bad tomorrow. By the end of it, I will be alive. You? The crows will feast on your flesh._

But it was obvious the men around him were not going to listen. His answer thus was as diplomatic as it could be in such circumstances.

"I will be honoured, your Grace."

The rest of the assignments were just common courtesy after that. Which force would be under whose command, Baratheon and Grandison forces taking largely the lion's share of the divide. Lord Shermer was placed under Royce's command, along with Lord Graceford.

"We will prepare and attack at dawn. To the Battle!" Said the King, holding his sword over his head in a martial manner.

"To the Battle and to victory!" Bellowed the Hand of the King, imitating his son-in-law.

"Victory and curse the Blacks!"

"Victory!"

"VICTORY!"

Royce quickly muttered "victory" before leaving the tent and been drenched in an icy rain. The wind was violent, and the night was dark. In spite of the Black positions being close on the other side of the river, the fires were difficult to watch. Trying to close his coat as best he could, Royce started to march to his own tent, alone in the muddy camp as his armsmen had been sent to their own quarters a long time ago.

 _I wonder how many of us in this tent will be alive tomorrow_.

 **King Daeron I Targaryen**

 _One more time, experience triumphs against hope_ , thought Daeron.

When he had ordered 'to prepare and attack at dawn' last night, Daeron had been really serious. All the knights and lords who had taught him in the past years had insisted to fight a battle the soonest possible in the day. That way, if the enemy was rooting, your army had a chance to pursue it for long hours, destroying it as a coherent force and making hundreds, no thousands of prisoners, holding noble hostages, cashing large ransoms. Oh, and killing thousands of the enemy soldiers of course. Maybe, just maybe, really finishing this war for good.

Now dawn had passed several turn of hourglasses ago and the army still wasn't ready. In fact, so many turn of hourglasses had passed it was almost noon. But as Daeron stood from the back of Tessarion, he saw the long wait was finally coming to an end.

At last.

The long columns of cavalry were trotting on the sparse grass and in the so-present mud. The heavy infantry, carrying halberds, pikes, spears, two-handed swords and large shields were running to the agreed positions in view of Bosworth Bridge.

Yet the fact remained that the Green army was late. Terribly late. From the top of Tessarion and with the help of a Myrish spyglass, Daeron could see the Blacks were waiting for them. The effect of surprise had long been gone.

It wasn't raining anymore, but his status of dragonrider did not leave him believe the grey clouds lying over their heads were much better. The wind was already violent on the ground, it was much, much worse for any animal flying in the sky. Perhaps one of the largest dragons before the war would not have been troubled. But his Tessarion had not grown to the size of Vhagar or the Black Dread. And with these dangerous conditions, unleashing dragonfire on your enemies was a very bad idea, assuming of course the lack of rain continued.

No, better to leave the knights take the glory today. All the scout reports agreed his army had a big advantage in numbers. The great chivalry of the South and the heavy infantry of the Stormlands were better armed than the paltry levies of the Riverlands, the poor Northmen, and the inexperienced Valemen. In fact, either the Blacks kept their cavalry out of sight, or they had already eaten their own horses. There were roughly fifteen thousand infantry on the other side of the river, but only small formation of horse-mounted archers and freeriders.

Daeron felt his army could win this battle. Well, they had to win. His own Master of Whisperers had sent a lot of reports his way this last fortnight, and few of them were good. There had been a bloody battle at Cider Hall, causing so many casualties no one was exactly sure who had won. The only sure thing was that the Greens still held the castle. On the western coast, the reavers were moving southwards, provoking more and more naval clashes with the Shield Island and the Redwyne sailors. Order was breaking down in the Reach and the Crownlands. This war had to be finished. Now.

"TO ARMS!" Screamed Lord Borros Baratheon. "AND NO QUARTER!"

The screams and the war cries answering rose to the Seven Heavens. For a moment, it appeared every House was shouting their own words.

"FIRE AND BLOOD!"

"OURS IS THE FURY!"

"WE LIGHT THE WAY!"

"A GRIFFIN! A GRIFFIN!"

"FOR THE TRUE KING!" Shouted the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands. "AAAAAAAAATTTTTTACCCKKKK!"

The noise was literally impossible to describe for a person having not assisted to a battle before. The horses, the metal of the weapons, the armours, the challenges of the soldiers, the boasts, it all sounded at the same time.

Over five thousand heavy infantry of the Stormlands charged to the bridge, all according to plan, descending the hill and trying to get to their enemies quickly. Behind them, came the archers of the Marches and the Reach to cover their approach and divert some attention. Some two thousand lows and crossbows, toughened by regular skirmishes and fights with the Dornish in the mountains or Blacks loyalists in the Kingswood and the Rainwood.

And then the bloodshed started. From the nearby hill fortified by the Blacks, hundreds of arrows were launched, a rain of wood, iron and steel formed in one goal: killing the Greens soldiers. Despite the wind and the hard visibility today, hundreds arrived on course. Watching with his spyglass, Daeron saw two banners of House Errol fall with their bearers, along with scores of others.

It didn't stop the infantry, though a few groups took some seconds to reorganise before pressing on. But the Blacks archers continued to fire. A second arrow launch was sighted just as the first soldiers arrived on the stone bridge, and the most impatient men of the vanguard were slaughtered as they tried to run on the stonework alone and without the support of their fellows.

For those who managed to cross, the Vale infantry was waiting on the other bank, a rank of pikes and spears that no single warrior could hope to defeat. They were promptly and ruthlessly cut in pieces.

 _Thanks the Seven I counter-commanded Borros and we didn't send the cavalry against that. We could have lost our entire horse here._

Now it was time for the true battle to begin. The Black archers were sending their third volley, but the Selmy banners were crossing the bridge, and arrived to contact against the pikemen. Even with the distance, it looked ugly. Fortunately, more and more infantry was arriving to the frontlines, pressing on, forcing the Vale shields to take a step back or two. Plus another.

 _Why didn't they wait in the middle of the bridge?_

When Daeron and his lords had discussed the strategy to choose, there had been the fear the Corbray and their allies were going to demolish the bridge while the van passed on it. Clearly, it hadn't happened.

A few drips sounded against Tessarion scales, and Daeron looked to the sky. Sure enough, the rain which had been absent for the better part of the morning was making its return. The sky in the morning had been a neutral grey, was looking darker and darker, with the rain worsening.

 _Formidable. Like this battle wasn't muddy and bad enough._

The reports came from his lords all over the battlefield. Lord Connington archers were duelling with the Blacks over the small swamp on the right. Lord Peake had tried to cross the ford on the left, but had been repulsed. According to the Lord of Starpike, his losses were light.

"My compliments to Lord Peake, but a second attempt must be made to cross the ford. We must fix the Northern and Riverlands infantry there. Our infantry will soon have finished to cross the bridge!"

The Reacher messenger bowed and then raced off on his horse to transmit the order.

It was a pious lie, of course. While Daeron had had his attention busy with the flanks of the battle, the Stormlands infantry had slowed down and then lost ground, to the point hundreds of soldiers were blocked on the bridge unable to advance, taking screaming and shouting the hundreds of arrows the Blacks sent at them.

 _How many arrows do they have? It's their ninth or tenth volley!_

Daeron forced himself to remain calm and behave in a kingly manner, but it was hard. The bridge, this cursed Bosworth Bridge, was now so full of his own soldiers corpses that they were squires and archers sending them in the river below to have an unimpeded path. The waters, bolstered by the rain, were turning a dark red at a frightening speed.

 _We aren't winning._

It was a hard realisation, but it was the truth. The Vale pikes, despite their inferiority in numbers, were pushing back his own infantry. And with the Riverlands archers shooting and murdering his own, there was no support. To make matters worse, the rain worsened. Even with his spyglass, Daeron wasn't able to see that much of the battlefield anymore.

"Tell to Lord Borros to send the second echelon." Daeron told to a messenger in Hightower to his right. The young man nodded and bowed before rushing vaguely in the direction where the master of Storm's End commanded his troops.

It was not going to be nice, especially if the archers on the other side had plenty of arrows left, but there weren't many choices. With the rain and the low visibility, trying to ride Tessarion and unleash dragonfire would be a monumental stupidity. He didn't know where Moondancer was. The Blacks could have scorpions and ballista somewhere that his scouts hadn't seen.

No, the second wave of infantry was going to do the job. And if they didn't, there was always the heavy cavalry left. Still, the losses in the Marcher archers were concerning...

"Go the camp and search for Lord Caron." Daeron ordered to another messenger, who had not moved since the start of the battle. "Tell him we need his archers! Go!" The king added, when the man slowly marched away like if there was no battle going on.

The battle continued, with Green and Blacks slaughtering each other. Daeron felt multiple times the urge to order Tessarion to fly, but each time the darkness of the sky and the close proximity of both armies stopped the young king.

"CHHHHARRRRGEEE! OURS IS THE FURY!" The strident voice of Lord Borros Baratheon was hurled over the battlefield, and by a turn of the weather Daeron was able to see a wave of cavalry descending the hill. All the Stormlands cavalry. Heavy and light. Hundreds of horses and their riders, all wearing the plate armours, steel or the light cuirass, galloping to the bridge doing a clamour able to wake up the Seven Hells.

 _That was not what we agreed on! What is Borros playing at?_

It was a question Daeron felt he knew already the answer. Glory. His new father in law had a thirst for glory and power that the young Targaryen monarch had rarely seen in any other man. And seeing all the plans made yesterday crumbled with this cavalry charge, Daeron admitted for the first time Lord Borros Baratheon was a horrible Hand, and not only in peace time.

Thanks the Seven, the best part of the Green infantry realised what was coming in their back and got away before being trampled by the blind gallop of the Baratheon and Grandison warriors. But for the men-at-arms fighting for their very lives on the bridge-turned-battlefield, there was no escape.

Bosworth Bridge was not the Great Bridge of Volantis or any of the stonework built by House Hightower in Oldtown, bit it was at least five feet high, and the river was in fury below it. Jumping, in full armour, was a guarantee of a slow and messy drowning. And many of the infantry were busy fighting the Vale heavy shields and spears.

With the rain thinning for the moment, Daeron was able to see Lord Durran Grandison arrive first on the bridge and smash, trample and kill scores of the Green men-at-arms before reaching the Blacks. There were no words to describe this spectacle, as beautiful and exhilarating as it was cruel and awful. The Stormlands cavalry trampled their own levies before trouncing the Vale infantry, which had not been able to reform their wall of pikes in time.

 _Thanks the Seven it worked._

With a sigh Daeron looked through his Myrish spyglass again, caressed the neck of Tessarion to reassure his bonded dragon. The Corbray banners were all gone, probably fallen into the mud, and the other Vale soldiers were running away. Daeron was not surprised. They had fought a long time against a powerful enemy twice their entire force, and then the cavalry had caught them in a melee. Now, tired and disorganised, with no reinforcements in sight...the bridge was finally belonging to the Greens.

 _And I will certainly have to congratulate Borros for it._

It left a bad taste in Daeron's mouth like a glass of wine turned sour. Even as far away from his position, the king of Westeros could see this unplanned charge had cost them hundreds of infantry dead, and more of them fleeing in the opposite direction of the battle.

The Caron archers, who had been supposed to turn the tide against the Blackwoods and their damned-too-efficient bowmen, had been cut down by their own liege lord and were dispersing all over the battlefield.

 _Damn it Borros..._

Daeron knew the relations between Storm's End and Nightsong were strained of late, and Lord Baratheon's insistence to let his bannersman guard the camp had been very suspicious. The young sovereign had accepted to ease the tensions and because someone had to do it in case the Blacks found a way to assault in their rear. This massacre was going to make things dangerous. Perhaps not for a rebellion, but definitely not a little thing to brush off.

"Tell Lord Connington to part with two hundred of his own archers to support the centre." Daeron ordered to a grizzled Reacher veteran lacking a few teeth. "We're going to take them to take this hill."

The old warrior saluted and departed, leaving the king watching what was happening on the battlefield. The surviving infantry of the first wave and the second echelon were finally passing the bridge, preparing to assault the hill. In what could only be a good sign, the Blacks had ceased to fire their demoniac volleys of arrows.

 _They shot all they had. Now it's our turn._

Seeing a bloodied knight in Peake colours approach, Daeron frowned. What now?

"Great news, your Grace!" Revealed the young man behind the helmet. "Lord Peake has taken the ford and slain Lord Ryger! Their infantry is running for their lives!"

"Excellent, Ser!" Exclaimed Daeron. With two crossings of the river taken, the enemy was in really deep trouble. "My congratulations to Lord Peake, and my command he is to press on. We can trap all the Black centre on this hill if we hurry!"

"To your command, your Grace!" Replied eagerly the knight, rushing his mount to announce the new orders to the commander of the left wing.

In this interval of time, Lord Borros had already sent his first assault at the fortified hill, and the rain had almost ceased, letting Daeron see what was happening. A true bloodbath. The Vale survivors had nowhere to flee there, and were standing their ground. Hundreds of men were stabbing each other in the mud, and the general confusion was such there wasn't one side clearly winning.

And then a loud horn sounded far away. Although to qualify this sound of a horn was greatly a compliment. It was more the primal howl of some agonising animal.

"The Northmen..."

Daeron had heard these horns sound the attack at First Tumbleton. The carnage afterwards had been incredible.

"Your Grace, the enemy is in full retreat on all fronts." Piped Ser Luthor Fossoway, one of the many sons of the green branch of New Barrel. "What a horn or two are going to do?"

Ser Luthor had just finished saying these words that five huge rocks appeared just like magic in the air before falling upon the bridge. Screams of horror and agony mounted. Entire groups of soldiers tried to get away, while Bosworth Bridge collapsed on itself.

"These bastards hid their catapults behind the hill, your Grace!" Told a new Peake horseman, his horse ready to collapse of tiredness.

"Not only the catapults..." Grimaced Daeron, pointing his right hand to a point right in front of him.

Gasps thorough all the Green army convinced him he had seen right. Behind the 'routing' Black infantry, who had stopped running and was reforming ranks, a massive formation of cavalry had appeared.

"WINTER IS COMING!"

 _And now the jaws of the trap have closed._

The rain chose this moment to resume. Not enough however to hide the thousands of crows now flying over the battlefield, ready to eat the dead.


	5. The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part II

**Chapter 5**

 **The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part II**

 **Lord Cregan Stark**

"Well, it appears they have swallowed the bait."

Cregan's voice was part-relieved, part-disappointed.

"It was time. I started to have doubts whether the plan was going to work, my lord."

The low voice of Lord Bolton was difficult to hear in the screams and the war cries of the battle raging in front of them. Not to mention the shouts 'Ours is the Fury!' pushed by thousands and thousands of cavalrymen charging straight for Bosworth Bridge. At their head, a giant helmet-antlered warrior was brandishing a huge warhammer, joyously trampling and killing his own infantry having the dire fortune to be in front of his war horse. From their position at the top of the hill, it certainly looked like a mass charge without any subtlety or finesse.

"The Green King is young, but no fool." Recognised the Lord of Winterfell. "If he was free to put his own circle in command positions, Daeron would truly be an opponent to fear."

In fact, with a dragon able to flee in a perfect weather, Daeron Targaryen would have already been even more dangerous, but no need to demoralise his bannersmen in the middle of a battle. Especially this battle. By the looks of it, the Greens had brought with them over eight and twenty thousand men, horse and foot. Perhaps as many as thirty thousand, it was difficult to count properly in this rain. To be sure, this was not a force to take lightly.

"We must thanks the Old Gods Lord Baratheon is as dumb as an ox, then."Murmured the Master of Dreadfort. "No doubt the Stag ignored his King's orders and charged ahead to take the glory."

The sight of an archer being crushed by his own Lord Paramount's horse in the distance, made possible by a timely interruption of the rain, confirmed how much Lord Borros Baratheon wanted this victory. Very badly. Cregan had heard the news from his agents the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands had married one of his daughters to the new Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and been named Hand of the King. It seemed it had not been enough to sate his thirst of power. Somehow, most of the Black leaders and those having travelled once in their life to the Stormlands were not surprised.

"In that case, I think it's time we do something about it, no?" His sworn swords, positioned in a circle to guard against a lone arrow or treachery, chuckled or barked in laughter. Good. They were all going to need it before plunging into this hell of blood and mud.

"We will wait until their cavalry has been fully engaged on our side of the bridge, then order the catapults to fire. That way we will trap most of their horse on our side. They have lost two-thirds of their archers, only their dragon will be able to save them." Cregan told his Bolton bannersman. Most of the men listening approved or saluted. The plan had been long discussed the day before, only the time to give the signal had been in question. Looking at the tormented skies where the fury of the Gods was clashing, Cregan gave a quick prayer to the Old Gods for it to remain that way. No dragonrider would dare fly in this tempest.

It had already been a hellishly task to make the catapults under the unending rain, move them for two days to Bosworth Bridge and place them in position behind the hill, far from any prying eyes. Cregan and all the Black lords had been insulted uncountable times by their own men for giving them such thankless tasks...now it was the time to see that all these efforts had not been put to waste.

"The Vale infantry is not going to hold." Lord Robard Bolton voice carried not even a hint of protestation. It was a cold and hard battle assessment, praiseworthy by its lack of feelings. "They are too tired and the Stormlanders are not going to give them enough time to reform the line."

"True. Send your son and two of your best swords, to make sure they are not running too far."

"Lord Lynderly and Lord Corbray are not going to be happy to see their men destroyed."

"No, I imagine they don't. But betrayal carries its lot of inconveniences, no?"

A curt nod from Lord Bolton was the only answer, with a small smile to accompany it.

The Warden of the North had seen at the banquet how those two had been unhappy with the decision to search battle against the Greens. Added to their natural ambition and their neutrality in this war, precautions had to be taken. The same precautions the Starks always took with House Bolton, as a matter of fact.

A prudence well-founded judging by a lone raven intercepted by the Blackwoods archers two nights ago. In it, Lord Lynderly and Lord Corbray were charged to turn on the Riverlander and Northern forces in the heart of the battle, in exchange of several land claims in the Vale they had always coveted. It was a singular turn of events most of these lands were in the hands or under control of lords having come with them to wage war, no doubt. A suspicious mind would tell the traitors were trying to win more power by selling their Black allies to the Green blades... and that the first backs to be stabbed would be Vale ones.

It had been a pain to arrange, but Cregan had changed all his strategy, and placed the Vale infantry of uncertain loyalty at the place of greatest danger. The two Great Lords and five of their cousins were all under arrest waiting their travel back to the Eyrie for oath-breaking before their execution...and the rest had been sent to form the vanguard guarding the crossing with Lord Ryger.

 _I doubt there will be one in five of them alive by the time this day is over._

The Lord of Winterfell regretted it, many in the infantry had obviously been innocent of their lieges conspiracies. But there hadn't been enough time to interrogate the Valemen one by one and the Warden of the North duty was to his people, not to the men of the East. And if you had not the time, better to not take any risk. Like the proverb said, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. With a bit of luck, the treacherous elements were dead or dying in the melee next to the bridge, and the innocents would emerge stronger from the battle.

Hopefully. Maybe. Destiny in a battle was fickle and not even the Gods could control everything.

"It's time." Affirmed The Lord Paramount of the North, addressing the closest messenger, a young boy in Manderly colours, who was waiting with a not-hidden impatience the occasion to join the bloodbath. "Tell to Lord Umber I am going to join him for the charge. The moment the catapults have demolished the bridge, they are ours. Lord Tully can attack the Peakes and the Mullendores to our right at the ford."

"By your command, Lord Stark!" Replied the boy, who had most likely not celebrated his thirteen name days, and raced down the hill slopes to transmit the order at an impressing speed. Of course, considering the rainy ground, the youth fell three times before being out of view in the elements. Running on a slippery ground was not a good idea at the best of times, and the earth here was close to a mud soup. More laughter echoed amongst the guards at these falls before seriousness came back.

Lord Cregan took a general glance at the battlefield. His infantry was retrenched in three massive formations on the heights, waiting for the showdown between the Vale infantry and the heavy cavalry of the Stormlands to be decided. By the looks of it, the horses had almost created six or seven huge mud rivers in their attack. Man-made rivers they were trying fruitlessly to go out. The cavalry of the South was going to win, but the butchery was ugly. There were scores of bodies carried away in the river, the current had taken a black-red colour, and near the bridge a big mountain of corpses.

 _What was the imbecile thinking? Except on the bridge, half of his forces are bogged down in the mud, and on it his men are target of choices for trained archers!_

This was why the Northern cavalry had positioned itself out of view on a rocky path directly opposed to the road, with enough solid ground to launch a good strike. On another time, it had served for cattle. Now it was going to serve for war.

After a few moments, Cregan made a gesture to the rest of his messengers, gave his last orders for Lord Ryswell, Lady Blackwood and Lord Glover, and mounted his black horse Shadowwolf. Then his party of sixty, Lord Bolton and Lord Hornwood included, descended the brown fortified hill to find the hundred of horses sagely waiting for them.

Under a mantle of rain, they appeared scores by scores, fresh and eager for the clash of swords to come. Barrow knights, eager to avenge their fallen Lord Rodrik Dustin. Small crannogmen with curbed bows and poisoned arrows. Great knights of House Manderly, armoured from head to toe in plate. The fearsome Mormont warriors, furs, iron and leather giving them the looks of disguised animals. Pale standards and livid skins of the Dreadfort bannersmen. Wood riders, the hunters of the Wolfswood. Free riders of the Rills, patrolling and guarding the North eastern coast with their resistant mounts. And of course everywhere the direwolf of House Stark, with freeriders and the cavalry of the North. Most of the banners were not flowing freely, soaked by the heavenly water falling from the skies, but their martial looks were not diminished. In this army reigned a hunger, a will to fight that had been transmitted from the Age of the Builder and led Starks to countless victories. The Old Gods be good, today this spirit was going to make the difference.

"The men stand ready, my lord!"Lord Tomard Umber came out of the rain, riding a horse that at point or another had giant ancestors to bear the weight of his muscled master. "Give us something to kill and we tear it apart!"

"Good. You can begin your battle-speech." The Last Hearth Master guffawed, saluted and then raised with his right hand an incredibly massive mace, forged in the blackest iron. One look at it was enough for Cregan to know it was a weapon most of the Northern warriors, himself included, would be unable to handle with their two hands.

Next to his wildling-lookalike bannersman, Cregan waited.

A pre-battle speech was always a difficult affair. It required a loud booming voice and an uncommon charisma, a point of madness and an air of leadership to make the common swordsman believe their lord is going to lead them to the Seven Hells and back without a scratch. Cregan Stark freely admitted screaming battle speeches were not was he did best. His father had always told him he had the knack to gather his lords around him, but not the thunderous war screams a commander needed to breathe a bloodthirsty instinct in his men.

Fortunately, for this and many other things, there was Lord Tomard Umber. With a bit of advice and preparation, the Lord of Last Hearth could push dead men to wake up and take the battlefield.

"MEN OF THE NORTH! MEN OF WESTEROS! TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE! DO WE FEAR DEATH?"

"NO!" Screamed every mounted soldier.

"NO! WE DON'T FEAR DEATH! RUN TODAY AND YOU MAY LIVE FOR A WHILE! BUT THEN WHEN THE OLD GODS WILL TAKE YOU IN SCORES OF YEARS IN YOUR BEDS...YOU WILL GIVE EVERYTHING TO COME BACK ON THIS BATTLEFIELD AND KILL THE ENEMY!"

Now the forces under his command were truly alive. Before they had been only excitation; now there was the bloodlust and the envy to kill and shred the enemy.

 _The direwolf wakes up..._

"WE ARE BORN OF WINTER! THE DRAGONS WILL NOT HAVE OUR SOULS...AND THEY WON'T TAKE OUR WINTER!"

Thousands of screams echoed in accord, until the throats could take no more.

"SOUND HORNS!" Ordered the Umber giant, giving the example by blowing a massive winter horn which had been on an aurochs head centuries ago.

The cavalrymen around him did not think and sounded in turn their personal instruments, making a monstrous cacophony enough to depress every bad and singer ever lived. Soon, the entire army sounded its horns. Howls. Loud howls everywhere calling for war and the end of an era.

Cregan raised his hand and gave to one of his captains. A black and red flag went up in the air and the massive catapults launched their devastating barrage.

 _Now this is going to hurt them_.

"SEND THEM IN THEIR FUCKING SEVEN HELLS! CHARGE! CHARGE! YAAAAAHHHHH!"

Cregan pivoted his horse as his cavalrymen started their trot. Unlike Lord Tomard, the Lord of Winterfell was going in the second line. Not to join the battle would have been an act a cowardice and provoked a lack of trust from his banners, but nothing stopped him to be smart about him. And to add his own support.

"WINTER IS COMING!" Cregan shouted as the trot intensified and the horses gained speed around the hill.

Cregan lowered his helmet and unsheathed Ice. The taint of the great Valyrian sword was even more sinister than usual in this dark rain. Shadowwolf whinnied powerfully, the horse feeling the first smells of the massacre. And the entire cavalry shouted the ancestral Stark words as the battle came into view.

"WINTER IS COMING!"

"WINTER IS COMING!"

The Northern army was now fully engaged for the biggest cavalry charge it had made in the last decades. Too late to withdraw or stop now. And the details of the battle were becoming more precise as the Black horses neared their enemies.

As Lord Bolton had predicted, the Vale foot soldiers had not taken the shock, but there were still hundreds of them alive, and here and there Northern warriors rallied them to put them. The majority of the infantry were standing on the heights, intact.

 _It is time to end this battle._

Here and there, hundreds of horses broke at full gallop, their cavalrymen screaming and gesticulating diverse profanities.

The Baratheon cavalry had seen them, and the horns of the Storm sounded furiously to answer the hundreds of screams shouting for Winter. But from Cregan's view, a lot of them had been dismounted and were fighting on foot. Many more were trapped in the mud or had disappeared in the river. Of Bosworth Bridge, there were only the two extremities. The bridge had been cleaved in two parts by the catapult salvo. The plan had functioned, and by the looks of it, plenty of Stormlanders and Reachers had been so close from being pulverised they had loosened their formation.

 _They are not going to reform their line in time._

"FULL GALLOP! FULL GALLOP AND KILL THEM ALL!" Lord Tomard Umber had taken a dement turn, and the entire Black centre cavalry accelerated at its best speed to smash in the Green horse. Three or four score of Baratheon that had by a miracle of the Seven achieved the double feat of avoiding the mud and the Vale pikes reacted, repositioned their swords and spears. Then they charged to meet Cregan's Northerners.

 _Here it begins._

The first lines fell upon one other in a torrent of steel and blood. Scream of agonies sounded and then they were in the core of the battle. Cregan saw a green knight on a brown horse rush in front of him. One strike of Ice in the right arm, and the opponent let down his longsword. A second in the neck and the Green fighter collapsed. A grey armour with a bridge emblem came into view, and the Lord of Winterfell disarmed him in the same manner. Too bad things got too quick and the battle separated them before the death blow.

Another man, this one dismounted, tried to attack him on his right with an axe. Parry. Parry. Parry. At the third parry, the steel of the weapon was cut in half by the might of the Valyrian Steel. Not letting his opponent come back into the fight, Cregan pushed the edge of Ice in the surprised soldier's neck, before slamming it into another soldier trying to come behind him.

The speed of the cavalry charge was gone. Around him, the Lord of Winterfell was seeing hundreds, no thousands of men, fighting in the mud. Drowning them, beating them with stones. The earth was red not brown. Parry. Strike. Everything was wrong. It was killed or be killed. Counter. Strike. Cregan had always known he was one of the best swordsmen of the North, and one after one the Green knights near him received the dolorous bite of the ancestral Stark blade. When one tried to attack him with two swords; Ice cut the first in half and a powerful kick in the unprotected face of his enemy dealt with the issue. Another move and a new head rolled under the hooves of Shadowwolf.

 _Imbecile, where did you lose your helmet? And your head? By the Old Gods, I think I love this shit._

"FORWARD! FORWARD MEN OF THE NORTH! FORWARD TO VICTORY!" Cregan squalled. One more strike, and a man with an armour in blue fell down in the mud and didn't move anymore. A Hightower knight tried to attack him in a desperate charge, how exactly the man and his courser had managed to remain atop in this bloodbath the Warden had no idea, but Cregan cut the head of his horse before shredding his leg and that was his end.

"WINTER IS COMING! PUSH THEM TO THE RIVER!"

"KILL THEM ALL!" The thunderous roar voice of Lord Tomard Umber came to the Lord of Winterfell's left, and while eliminating two more dismounted swordsmen, Cregan saw the familiar mass of the Umber giant tore apart the lines.

For a moment the entire battlefield froze. The seven Green knights mustering under an Errol ruined banner froze too. Then Lord Tomard was upon them. "THE. GIANT. IS. UNLEASHED!" Each word was followed by a stupendous movement of the mass. The first knight head was beaten into a pulp. The second had his legs crushed. The third tried to flee, only to be thrown away in the air, like one in these heroic bard tales. The crack announcing his contact with the mud-covered ground was sonorous and final. The fourth tried to block his doom, but the light sword was brutally moved aside and the doomed warrior was smashed against a horse's corpse and ceased to move.

"THE NORTH REMEMBERS! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES SOUTHRONS!"

Finishing a spearsman who had watched too long this slaughter, Cregan saw the ranks of the Stormlanders tremble. Like they all realised they were going to be doomed.

 _A last push. A last push and they are ours._

Cregan launched Shadowwolf in a last effort between two fallen Vale pikemen and killed a swordsman who was fighting with a Barrow knight.

"WINTER IS COMING! VICTORY IS OURS!"

"NO!" Screamed a massive knight, standing up on the corpse of his large warhorse. "OURS IS THE FURY! OURS IS THE FURY! TRAITORS! TRAITORS I WILL ALL SEND YOU IN THE SEVEN HELLS!"

Cregan bared his teeth in a predatory smile. Massive plate armour. Large warhammer. Booming voice. Baratheon colours, strained with mud and blood. Helmet with antlers. Lord Borros Baratheon had decided to grace them of this presence, and by the looks of it, his entire guard was dead or dying around him.

"COME LORD STARK! COME FIGHT ME AND DIE!" Boomed the thunderous voice of Storm's End. But the imprecation was not as powerful as the former ones. Now, the hint of fear was clearly audible. Cregan had hundred of Northmen hacking their away around him. Lord Borros was alone, as one of his knights fell to a Karstark champion.

The Lord of Winterfell fought desperately against the urge not to laugh. The Hand of the King wanted a duel. With him. And the battle was lost for the Greens. Who did the Lord of Storm's End think he was? An Arryn?

"One hundred dragons for the one who brings me his head!" Shouted Cregan, pointing Ice directly towards the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands.

Whatever the Hand of the Green King had expected to hear from his Black counterpart, Lord Borros had clearly not thought of that. And as hundreds of Northern warriors dismounted and rushed on him, there was no time for the Stormlander to change his strategy. The rest of the action was not pretty to see. The famous Baratheon warhammer smashed the first two barrow knights having rushed, but then the Stormlands brute was completely surrounded. And against that many opponents, the best plate money could buy was not enough. A Manderly knight covered in blood pushed his sword in the leg of the Stag.

"I WILL...AAARRRRGGGHHHH!"

Like a pack of wolves, the Karstark, Umber, Hornwood and Flint dismounted and cut the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands apart, punishing every error with a swift and deadly strike of an axe, spear, sword or mace. Lord Borros screamed. A lot. He screamed when his left hand was shredded finger by finger, perhaps the work of a Bolton. He screamed when his legs failed him and the ground was tainted of his blood. It was only when his throat was torn open that the screams ended.

The warhammer fell, under the stunned eyes of the surviving Greens.

"PUSH THEM TO THE RIVER!"

This time, the Stormlands and Reach soldiers all ran for their lives. It was the moment Shadowwolf chose to stumble on the corpse of a Marcher archer. As the ground neared him, Cregan thought could only be resumed in two words.

 _Oh, shit._

 **Lord Royce Caron**

In all his life, Royce had always loathed with a passion the turn of hourglasses preceding an important event like a battle or a tourney. The anxiety permeating your very skin. The annoying noise of the rain and the shrieks if the weather was bad. If the sun came out, the terrible warmth that made wearing his plate armour absolutely unbearable and boiled you so much many fainted before the order to charge was given. The smell of the shit from the horses was unbearable, when it wasn't added to the men themselves pissing in their breeches next to you. The whispers of the other lords, no doubt intending to betray you for glory and the ear of their liege lord. The grumblings and the curses of the levies, unhappy at the idea of leaving their home to die on Seven-cursed battlefield for a lord they were perfectly content to ignore.

But with now the opportunity to notice the differences, there was nothing more awful than assist to the battle deciding the fate of Westeros and not be able to participate. Especially when his side was losing.

 _No, I'm wrong. The most awful thing would be agonising in this mud hell. I'm alive, this is a point in my favour._

"Are we going to charge, my lord?" Asked one of the uncountable hedge knights of Oldtown who had been left with him. By all rights, the man did not look happy. He had the face of someone who had just seen his entire family die before his very eyes.

 _When I think about it, perhaps it is exactly what happened. We must love lost hundreds of spears since the first charge went in._

"Charge where, Ser?" Replied bitterly the Lord of Nightsong. "The Blacks have destroyed the bridge if you haven't noticed." As if anybody, dead or alive, could have missed the launch of several catapult projectiles and the hellish carnage they had made touching the ground. "Unless your horse has learnt to fly when I had my back turned, I'm afraid we're stuck where we are."

"There is still the ford!" Protested the young man, turning his breastplate to reveal the emblem of a bee over a tower.

 _By the Seven, are you blind Ser? Our cavalry and our infantry are getting massacred and you want to charge in THAT?_

Lord Royce loved a good melee as much as the next knight or lord wanting a thrill of glory. This battle wasn't it. No, this massacre wasn't it. The imbecilic charge of his liege Lord, and if he wasn't wrong, against the Royal orders too, had managed to make a complete slaughter of a battle already badly engaged. From the start of the battle, the Riverlands archers had exercised their archers' talents to turn their army into porcupines; after the catapult barrage of destruction, the Green soldiers near the bridge had been demanded to swim without any warning. By the looks of it, they were sinking pretty handily. Heavy armour tended to do that. And the rest of the scene seen from the camp wasn't much better.

There was red everywhere, when the rain calmed down momentarily to let the Marchers watch the carnage. The Northerners, cavalry and infantry, bayed like wolves, and massacred everyone on their side of the river, pushing the Stormlanders in the river or slaying them where they stood. The Stag and the Lion banners of Baratheon and Grandison were falling, sinking in a torrent of water and blood, trampled by the Black armoured feet. There was no one to raise them defiantly in the air anymore. There was no one alive to contest the northern bank anymore.

 _Where is the glory you promised us, my liege? Where are the sun and the victory? Where are the Black sheep supposed to fall bleating upon our blades?_

His morose thoughts did not get better when a messenger bearing the orange-black of House Peake raced before him and looked him with a terrified face.

"My lord, my lord! Lord Peake has been slain by the Tullys! All the left wing is collapsing! We need reinforcements!"

 _Trust the bad news to come with the bad ones. And why are they going to me? I'm supposed to guard the camp, no?_

Lord Peake had been an insufferable ambitious and the Lord of Nightsong was happy to see him gone. The loss of the left wing...that was more regrettable. Not to mention difficult to deal with when part of your army was reeling from the losses of hundreds if not thousands of your best swordsmen.

"Our centre is gone." Interrupted another mounted warrior who had come out of nowhere. "We must direct all the reinforcements here NOW!"

"I'm afraid the centre is going to hold on its own." Replied in a hot-head manner the Peake messenger. "Don't you hear what I say? The Blacks have retaken their bank of the ford! We need reinforcements there! All else can wait!"

"What are you doing here Caron? We need every man now!" Purposely the other messenger was ignoring the Peake sworn sword and addressing himself to Royce, leaving the Lord of Nightsong place a name along the face.

Ser Richard Cafferen. One of Lord Baratheon fiercest supporters, maybe because the knight was unable to have a single thought of his own which did not cover whoring and drinking until he didn't remember his own name.

"I will move when I will have archers to cover my advance." Declared finally Lord Caron, maintaining a pious attitude of regret he knew would not fool the two men in front of him.

And indeed, it was sufficient to provoke an explosion of fury from Cafferen.

 _Not thinking me and my troops are that useless anymore, Ser?_

"You have archers! Scores of them! Hundreds of them!"

"I had many archers under my command." Corrected Royce. "Until Lord Borros killed them in his glorious charge."

 _And you helped him do so_ , was the part left unsaid. Marcher archers were valuable soldiers. Trained and excelling in long-distance shoots thanks to hundreds of skirmishes with the Dornish, Royce was going to take years to replace them, assuming it was possible. The last thing Lord Caron wanted was to throw the rest of his sworn swords and cavalry in this mud hell.

"If you don't form the line and charge Lord Baratheon will have your head for this!"

"The day the death comes back to life, surely." Royce laughed. This was way too funny. "Tell me, Ser, have you seen Lord Borros standing on the other side? No? I'm afraid our lord has left us for a better world."

 _Likely the Seven Hells, given Lord Baratheon's love for battle and blood. First battle, and the proud Stag had screwed it up completely._

"I refuse to hear these traitorous words." Snarled Ser Richard Cafferen. "It will take more than a hundred Black traitors and barbarians to slay our lord! What we're seeing is only a small part of the battlefield, I am certain our forces are regrouping on the heights! I'm going to help them! Who's with me?"

The acclamations were pathetically few to mount in the air, and the visage of the Fawnton knight showed the signs of a terrible anger. No doubt he had hoped for more support. Slowly, thirty cavalrymen and about twice that many pikes abandoned their positions at the limit of the camps and rallied to Cafferen. Few of them, less than half a score all told, had been sworn to the Nightsong. Not the most reliable, and all had spoken against Royce leadership in the first place.

 _Good riddance. You're welcome to have them, Ser Cafferen. Take them and join Lord Baratheon in the Seven Hells. I will sleep better tonight._

 _Assuming of course there is enough of me left to sleep._

"You will get what you deserve, Caron!" The exclamation of Ser Cafferen echoed as the small group descended the slope and disappeared in direction of the frontline.

 _So will you_.

"Good. This imbecile has ceased to be a problem." Grumbled a lightly built pikeman having watched the scene on the left.

"He took nearly one hundred men with him, lord." Said a grey-haired old knight, a man long past his prime in tourneys and hunts, with something like reprobation. "We could have used them for more than fish bait."

"True, but unimportant." Shrugged Royce. "The milk and the wine are spilt, and all of that. Begin to make the preparations for a hasty retreat. My aching bones tell me we're going to need the advance to escape the pursuit."

"Where is the King?" Intervened another knight, who had apparently not bothered to come in full armour, but instead had put heavy cloaks on his horse and himself to protect the duo from the assaults of the rain.

Indeed, where down the slope there had been a dragon and its royal passenger, plus a couple hundred of knights, there was no one here anymore. In the tumult of the battle and the rain, Royce's levies had not even noticed.

 _That's why these idiots came directly to me..._

"I don't know..." The Marcher lord hesitated. "Perhaps gone on the left on his dragon to see how the battle was going?"

It was at this moment a loud thrill sounded in the distance. The knights of the Stormlands mustered on the hill did not lose any time to share their estimation.

"What is this sound?"

"Have the Northerners taken us in the back?"

"If the left has dispersed..."

"Trumpets and drums."

"Trumpets and drums? We haven't..."

"Trumpets and drums?" Asked the Lord of Nightsong to himself. "But our instruments are lying at the bottom of the river..."

 _Unless...unless the calls of our good Master of Coins have not went unheard. And if it is the case..._

"The Lannister have deep pockets and pay their debts..." Murmured Royce, as some of the closest warriors on horse looked at him in a strange manner.

Instants later, the source of the noise revealed itself from the rain and the elements. Soldiers. Columns of soldiers, marching in tight formation of pikes. And over their heads, flew large banners, representing animals that were neither of the Marches nor of Westeros. Elephants. Tigers. Parrots.

And in the middle of these thousand rushing to battle, grey animals dressed like miniature forts, ready to brink destruction on the enemy.

"Prepare the men for battle." Ordered Royce Caron to his men, a necessary order considering many were gaping like idiots with their mouth completely open. "There is still a chance this day will not end in disaster."


	6. The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part III

**Chapter 6**

 **The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part III**

 **Captain-General Makaerys Belicho**

"If that elephant does not want to advance one more time, then by the wrath of Caraxes I will eat it at my next meal!"

Makaerys Belicho knew he was throwing a tantrum before half of his men, but at this moment the Volantene commander didn't really care. He was drenched and cold, his teeth were gritting in sounds no scion of the Old Blood should make or listen to. He had had to use three different mounts since the march commenced at first light. Makaerys had had to separate twice gatherings since their pause at the last village, once for a sordid story of stolen bread and the other because an officer had accused one of his pikemen to steal in his baggage. The Captain-General of the Fierce Parrots knew he had arrived to the limits of his patience.

And now one of the three elephants he had been forced by contract to bring with him was busy taking a mud bath, forcing the columns of pike and soldiers to move around or stop and create a jam.

"I've heard it's bad luck to eat elephant meat before a battle is to be fought, Captain." Intervened his second, the Paymaster Tovarro. Having celebrated two and forty name days three fortnights ago, the treasurer of the company was covered in scars and lacked half of his teeth, but his mind was sharper than most warriors and generals Makaerys had had the opportunity to meet in his life.

"Pure superstition, I assure you." Replied curtly the commander of the Fierce Parrots. If one listened to everything in the Free Cities supposed to bring bad luck, one would never go out of bed and live a life. A thousand religions and cultures tended to create a million superstitions. At least.

"You will need a lot of meals to eat an elephant by yourself."

"That sounds like a more reasonable point." Admitted the Volantene noble with the ghost of a smile on his lips. "That said," his expression turned harder and more dangerous, "if this elephant isn't moving in the next couple of hourglass turns, it won't matter. Because we will have missed the battle!"

It was a gross exaggeration and both men knew it. If each time they had had an accident or a delay from their departures of Volantis the Fierce Parrots lost the opportunity to fight in a battle, their troops would hardly fight once per year.

"I'm going to tell the trainers they have to hurry and stop blocking the progression of our foot." Proposed Tovarro, giving a disgusted glance at the men in question, who were doing their best not to go in the mud and take out their huge charge.

"Do that. And explain to them by the same occasion that every gold coin our employer will not pay us will be compensated somewhere else."

 _Somewhere like the elephant trainers purse for example_ was the unspoken affirmation.

"What is it now?" Asked the Captain-General, seeing that while Tovarro departed, one of his mounted messengers waiting in silence on his left.

"The scouts are coming back, Captain-General."

"Let's see if they have something interesting to tell us..." Makaerys said with a pinched expression of his mouth. "Apart that the weather is atrocious, that is."

Makaerys Belicho had read several books on how dreadful the winds and the rain could be in Westeros during a winter. Somehow, despite plenty of horrible tales spread by lazy sailors, the books and the stories had understated the bad weather a lot. The Volantene companies having accepted the gold of the Iron Throne had been brutally hammered in the Narrow Sea. The transports and their escorts had been dispersed everywhere, to the point Belicho had found himself at Duskendale commanding eight thousand men of his own company, sixty and two hundred archers from the Redoubtable Elephants, and five hundred spears from the Crouching Tigers. Where the last five hundred men and the main components of the two other companies had been displaced, neither Makaerys Belicho nor his officers had any idea.

 _Of course it isn't the only thing the books and the tales have understated...if the pay wasn't that good, I would never have crossed the Narrow Sea._

Once having landed on a good and hard ground that was not in any danger to sink, it had been to discover how miserable the transportation means in the Sunset Kingdoms were. Captain-General Makaerys had no idea what the situation in the Reach or the Stormlands was looking like, but the roads in this part of Westeros were an insult to the name. The Valyrian Freehold at the height of its power would have endlessly laughed at these muddy trails the native lords pretended to call 'roads' if they were alive today, and even Belicho's fellow Volantenes would have criticised the high roads, never mind this 'Fish Road'.

Roads. What a bad joke. No pavement, no smooth trail, and thanks to the civil war currently being fought, no maintenance. In dry season, there had to be clouds of dust every time a couple of horses followed each other. In winter and with these never-ending rains, these poor excuses for a road became a mud hell. In which an elephant was busy swimming, which was certainly not going to help things.

 _In Volantis we have slaves to do this sort of tasks...here they have free men who aren't doing it. And they have the gall to call slavery outdated. At least the Braavosi understand how to build their ships and cities. These Westerosi seem to be content to kill each other and build ugly castles._

It wasn't the only thing going wrong in the Seven Kingdoms. Driftmark ruins had still been smoking thanks to a Three Daughters Fleet when the transports went past the island. One in two villages had no more smallfolk or nothing anymore living in them. Crows were by the hundreds swallowing humans' corpses, feasting on the scores of battlefields having raged in the last couple of years. His hunters had had to scare away wolves and bands of errant dogs in their foraging. In spite of the winter clothes to Ibbenese traders, the men of Southern Essos were not handling the cold very well, and diseases were rampant in the camps in the evenings, coughs and various complaints agitating the ranks.

 _This is not the Disputed Lands...this is far, far worse._

"How are things before us?" Sighed Belicho, seeing the commander of his scouts Lahal Naero come back at a reasonable trot.

"The road or the troops of King Aegon?" Asked the vanguard officer in a tone where no happiness could be found.

"The troops. I don't need scouts to tell me more mud is waiting for us."

Naero nodded negatively once, as if to temperate the words of his commander.

"The mud is lessening somewhat in the hills, not far from here." Announced the veterans of countless clashes in the Disputed Lands, moving his hand in a vague direction partially invisible thanks to the rain and the fog created with all the clouds. "I think we will be glad to camp there tonight."

"And our allies?"

"By the trace they have made, I think they can't be more than two days before us."

"Really?"

"Absolutely, you doubt my ability to read the footprints of an entire army?" The commander of the scouts bared his teeth in a parody of smile. "Never mind. They seem to have slowed down their march a lot these last days, and we have found our pace...say what is the elephant doing in this mud pool?"

"Forget it." Told Belicho, refraining to lament at the spectacle of the elephant partially drowning ten men in a brown-coloured sea.

 _It's the last time I sign a contract that forces my company to cross the Sea with elephants in the baggage...impress the rebels, ha!_

"As you say, Captain-General." Naero was doing his best not to burst in laughter, and was failing if his widening lips were any indication.

"Do you think we can take the chance to send another messenger to the Westerosi?"

"I would not advise it, Captain. There are a lot of bandits and dangers in the area." The fate of the last messengers was not spoken about. There had been so many body parts on the ground last time the Parrots officers had almost not recognised their men's corpses. Naero loosened a bit his helmet and gave a few caresses to his white horse. "Plus I've seen a band of archers that looked dangerously skilled with their bows in the last days. They're not slouches with their arrows, if you know what I mean."

"Black Dragon archers?"

"Them or deserters. They could be Green too and think we are enemies. It's difficult to make the difference, really."

His company commander grunted to agree. As days passed, there were less and less differences between the appearance of Westerosi Black, Westerosi Green regular soldiers, sellswords and bandits. Weapons were rusted. Horses were meagre, thin and malnourished. Colours and banners were in tatters. The Volantene equipment of the Fierce Parrots was by comparison extremely clean, both functional and perfect in appearance.

Three times since Duskendale landing there had been skirmishes between the mounted van and local forces. Each time the fresh Volantene soldiers had inflicted disproportionate heavy losses and sent their opponents packing. Alas sending away messengers away in small groups tended to find them one day or two later dead with their throats sliced open by a sword or another very sharp object.

"Any signs of Kraxos or Carthagos?"

Larko Kraxos was the Captain-General of the Redoubtable Elephants and Hanno Carthagos was the man holding the same position in the company of the Crouching Tigers, the two companies hired with the Fierce Parrots by the Greens Targaryens to fight in this bloody civil war. As the men of said companies Makaerys had under his command were pestering him night and day to search their missing officers, the Captain-General had felt obligated to ask the question.

"No, but since we never saw them at Duskendale...perhaps they drowned in the Narrow Sea?"

Captain-General Makaerys Belicho snorted. "I doubt the Gods of the Fourteen Flames will give us that good fortune. These two are like cockroaches. Once you believe you've rid of them, they're going out of hiding."

All around him his officers made similar sounds. None had been very impressed by the other two Captain-Generals. Kraxos and Carthagos had not been chosen by the Lannister recruiters because they were pleasant or very recommendable leaders of men in battle. No, the sole reason the Redoubtable Elephants and the Crouching Tigers had been attracting for any Westerosi envoy was that they were among the rare Essossi companies in the Volantene-held Disputed Lands which didn't use any slave-soldiers to fill their ranks.

On parchment, a recruiter ignorant of the state of military affairs in Volantis or any Free City sworn to its laws would certainly believe the freedmen were superior and more motivated than the slave rabble. Sweet honey candy, you didn't have to make them free once the ships touched the Westerosi shores. On the battlefield, things were often very different from this nice and reassuring painting. Volantene freedmen were rare and precious, in a city where slaves outnumbered the citizens more than three to one. Free men choosing not to try their chance in trade or estate administration were pretty much guaranteed a place in the officer ranks, whether it was aboard a large carrack or in a legion. It helped that since Volantis had the Elephants in power, the prospects of fighting to repulse encroaching Dothraki khalasars and ambitious sellswords commanders in Volantis backyard were varying from non-existent to nil.

Thus companies like the Crouching Tigers and the Redoubtable Elephants, and if Makaerys wanted to admit it, the Fierce Parrots too, had a lot of scum, murderers, drunk, crazy and heavily indebted men in their cohorts. Slave-soldiers were superbly trained and were available by the thousands when a turn of recruiting began. On the opposite side, the hiring pool for freedmen was tiny and grew even more minuscule as the years passed. Years, sometimes decades were necessary to forge a reliable weapon of these ruined recruits when capable officers were available...and the last point was rarely met. Makaerys had had to hire several non-Volantene officers himself. Tovarro and Naero, for example, were not born in Volantis but in Myr and Tyrosh respectively.

"Tell your men to be careful. Send me a messenger when your riders will see our allies' camp."

Fortunately for Belicho nerves, the rest of the day was much less exciting. It rained twice before the tens were mounted for the night, but the mysterious archers had not been seen again, all the soldiers had reported back without injuries or more problems, and none of the camp followers had been lost in the fog. Commander Averres of the archers managed to convince a minor holdfast east of the 'road' to sell them a few more supplies, principally onions, to improve the daily rations.

Yes, things were looking up. Makaerys Belicho was almost tempted to demand one of the high-paid whores to be brought to his tent, but in the end stopped the idea before it came out of his lips. Having sex with anyone was difficult for him since this incident...the Captain-Commander simply didn't trust anyone to be so close when his own family had proven they were ready to do anything to murder him. Old Blood or not, wealthy or not, loyal or not.

 _No, Makaerys. Don't think about her. She's not worth it._

The next morning, or what passed for a morning in winter in this god-forsaken country, was not good. Hundreds of soldiers grumbled as they rose, discovering the very cold and violent wind they hated had begun to flow again, the rain was falling in abundance, and thus the march promised to be more unpleasant than ever. The first meal was limited to some bread, boiled water with the few vegetables the foragers had been unable to buy, steal or grab in places their commander wanted nothing to know about.

Naero and his men had been the first to leave afterwards, a couple of hundred scouts searching for their allies...and their enemies. The lord and master of the Belicho cadet line was not exactly dancing in joy to let his best horses and cavaliers be separated from the main group, but it was not like the alternative, rushing in an enemy ambush, was easy to contemplate. The long process of charging everything on the chariots had ended, and the cavalry, the archers and the spears of the heavy and light infantry had started their progression northwards. The three elephants and a light cavalry detachment formed the rear-guard, nearly invisible in all this rain. And the mud. Always the mud. In the summer season, the sellsword company would have been already to the Westerosi town...what was the name anyway? Ah, yes. Maidenpool.

On the subject of the road, the current trail had been more carefully maintained in the hills, perhaps a knight or a lord more conscious of his duties than the rest? But the passage of over five hundred and eight thousand men in these conditions was largely enough to ruin it. More so when half of it formed a little torrent by itself. And to worsen the conditions, the relative close distance between the Parrots and the Westerosi army they were following disturbed the discipline. Three times the vanguard caught up with chariots trying to repair their failing wheels or having their load spread up everywhere on the ground. Here and there some camp followers tried to propose their services. While Makaerys men had the good sense to refuse, the other two companies' groups marching with them were less prudent and professional.

The day was the same grey and rainy. Once they had passed the remnant of the abandoned Westerosi camp, there was not much to attract attention, save two destroyed settlements. According to the scouts coming back and who gave their reports to Makaerys, the first village and all his inhabitants had been killed by the army of their own allies, a fact which spread in the ranks really quickly. Sellsword veterans formed the majority of the force, but as accustomed as the hard realities of war the men were, this sort of total destruction was...madness. After all, if you killed everyone, what was the point of ruling these lands when the conflict was over? Dead men paid no taxes, cultivated no harvests, never answered the call to arms of your faction and so on. And if there was a thing the Seven Kingdoms had no more, it was a surplus of men.

 _These Westerosi are mad...they are behaving like Dothraki when they have the blood in their eyes..._

The Captain of the Fierce Parrots was about to order a new halt for everyone when Naero and half his group came back like the Doom was in pursuit. More worrying were the noises carried by the northern winds to his ears. Screams. Loud howls and thunderous noises of warhorns. War cries. And the familiar clash of steel against steel.

"We have found the Green camp...but it looks like the battle has already begun." Said unnecessarily Lahal Naero once he came back to his side.

 _So that's why they were slowing their march...they were preparing for battle._

"How does it look on the battlefield?"

"Bad." For a veteran of the Disputed Lands, this assessment was not frequently used. "Looks like our allies are making a mass charge on the only bridge allowing them to pass on the other side of a small valley. But the enemy is looking well entrenched on the other bank...I think they are thousands of dead already."

"Size of allied and enemies' forces?"

"The Greens have over twenty thousand, the Blacks fifteen?" Naero shrugged. "These were the numbers one of the Green captains gave to me. With all this rain and the forces fighting far from the other, it's difficult to say."

The northern wind brought the sounds of battle and agony, and the Volantenes were probably one league or two away from the battlefield. The Captain-General gritted his teeth. It looked like his options had been brutally simplified then.

 _If I had sent messengers we would have arrived in time for the battle...but the deed is done. I will have to eat my elephant at the end if it cost me the battle, though_.

Arriving late to the battle was not exactly good for a sellsword reputation...but it beat every day arriving after the battle and see your employer die or being defeated because you weren't there. Not to think about the Blacks weren't going to let them go if they won.

 _Why, I'm sure they can make the difference between Lysene and Volantene sellswords! No, no! We hadn't any hand in what happened to Driftmark!_

"Forced march." Belicho ordered, trying not to think about the possibility of his company finding itself in enemy territory with bloodthirsty Westerosi in pursuit. "I don't care if anyone is tired, we must accelerate our pace. Use the drums, the horns, all the instruments we have. Hearten the troops and increase our damned speed!"

"The men have not eaten since we began the walk!" Protested Mao Revao, the veteran commanding the heavy infantry when it came to the formal battles. "We have to make a halt else we risk a collapse before we arrive to the battlefield!"

"I'm aware of it." Captain-General Makaerys Belicho retorted to his subordinate, not ceasing to watch the large rainfalls dropping upon everyone's heads. "Our camp followers will have to spread what bread we can take out the rations and distribute it as we march."

By the looks of it, this proposition made his officers about as happy and enthusiastic as the Volantene Captain-General was. Which was not at all. But with the chariots and the non-fighters freedmen dispersed thorough the several columns, doing this was going to take far less time than a complete halt would take.

 _It's not like we can mount camp here and convince the Westerosi to finish the battle tomorrow..._

"FIERCE PARROTS! THE BATTLE IS WAITING FOR US!" Screamed the Captain-General.

"TO BATTLE! TO BATTLE!" Replied the hundreds of troops, but the tension was all too clear in the stiffening of the shoulders and the eyes.

The next turns of hourglasses were miserable for Makaerys and his officers. Pressing the men that hard was easy to say around a bonfire, but in this cold rain it was a not-so-enlightening experience. Distributing the food to all was a monumental chore, and the rushed affair made sure that unscrupulous soldiers tried to eat twice, and a few examples had to be made with the lash. The Captain-General cursed the Westerosi, their gods, their lands and their roads a hundred times in his head, encouraging and vociferated countless encouragements for his men to make haste and race to the battle. Meraxes be praised, a sort of bloodlust had put the lines of pikes and bows in a murderous frenzy, and a new vigour had seized the Volantene and all Essossi present among the Fierce Parrots.

The tumult of battle was astonishing now. In the rain, small groups of running men were perceived, trying to leave the battlefield. Deserters and broken troops, no doubt. Makaerys gave a series of orders to the recruiters to gather back these fleeing soldiers, by force if need to be.

Yes, these troops were broken and useless...today. But one thing every sellsword commander learnt in the Disputed Lands was that a campaign rarely ended in a day. If the Fierce Parrots were a company at the end of this battle, these men would boots back the Volantene numbers.

 _It's one of the rare advantages we have, since we don't use slaves in the ranks..._

The battlefield could not be far anymore. The Fierce Parrots main body started the climb of the last hill, the tumult of the battle was thunderous, a last effort and then...

"DRAGON!" Screamed a man, pointing his arm towards a dark mass in the rainy sky.

A dark mass roaring to all the Gods, challenging the world to fire and blood, came out of the dark clouds. The distance was close enough to watch the fire-breathing gigantic animal in all its glory. A sapphire colour, two large wings, enough teeth to frighten a tiger, a sinuous tail. Dragon.

Scion of the Old Blood or not, Makaerys Belicho felt in awe at such a majestic sight. This was the power the Valyrians of old had held over three hundred years ago. This was the power his ancestors had had in their hands and between their legs. The power that had allowed them to build an empire, put the Rhoynar, the Andals and the Ghiscari in their place, and conquer the Known World. The power to burn, threaten and govern from lands so distant the Sun never set on them. Fine, perhaps the last point was exaggeration.

But given the losses the Targaryen had suffered in this war according to the rumours spreading thorough the Free Cities, it was possible this was the last living member of its species. Watching it was a spectacle to remember for the rest of a soldier's existence.

Just as this thought got through Makaerys' skull, a similar beastly roar sounded and the Volantenes saw stupefied a smaller dragon emerge from the clouds and plant his fangs in the tail of its larger cousin.

The blue reptile screamed in anger and belched a colossal column of dragonfire. The move was swift and the torsion of the neck would have been utterly impossible for a human, but the small dragon was already evading, having released the part of its enemy it had chewed on. Attacks and aerial counter-attacks clashed, blue fire against pale fire, before the two flying animals plunged into the clouds and disappeared again to the mortal eyes observing them.

"What are we going to do, Captain?" Asked Tovarro, who like everyone else had stopped riding as the sky was filled with the flames of the dragons.

"Pray the battle will be over when the dragons end their dance."

"And if it's not the case?"

 _This isn't good at all... we haven't the siege engines to force a dragon to withdraw._

"Pray harder..." Was the sarcastic answer the Paymaster received.

Fortunately, not a single turn of hourglass later the Parrots could perceive the battlefield at last in its bloody glory. It was chaos. There were soldiers fighting, fleeing, murdering, dying everywhere. Any discipline had abandoned the armies on this side of the river long ago. Thousands of men clashed in a destructive melee where the crows descending from the skies were the only winners. Green banners were retreating feet by feet, scores of them falling in the mud as their bearers were torn apart by the enemy coming from the left flank. On the river, unstable bridges were thrown as the Black Dragon soldiers crossed the red-black torrent charring corpses by the thousands.

Faced with no recognisable formation and enemy cavalry from the left, the Fierce Parrots formed a standard formation of the Disputed Lands: the heavy infantry in the centre, with its wall of pikes, the archers behind and the cavalry on the flanks. As for the three elephants, they were too slow to follow the pace of the attack, and would mop-up the resistance left.

 _Or cover our retreat if things turn badly._

As the Volantene company started its advance on the battlefield, one of the veteran scouts came back, followed by a Westerosi having his armour decorated by a superb green turtle. Or what should have been a superb turtle if the armour did not look like the knight had recently taken a bath of blood.

"Well-met my lord...I'm afraid I don't even know your name?"

"Captain-General Makaerys Belicho of the Volantene Fierce Parrots."

"King Daeron compliments, Captain-General, you arrival is more than welcome!" The worst part was that the man, with his accent of the Stormlands, looked absolutely sincere when he said these words. In his guts, the member of the Belicho cadet line felt something twist. Usually, no one looked that happy to see sellswords arrive and grab the money, unless the situation was really desperate."The King asks for your company to defend the centre while his officers rally the troops on the left. Half our army is running for their lives, and I am afraid all we can do is limit the rout. The battle is lost."

"Don't be so hasty. The battle is lost, but the day is not over. We have time to win another!" Ah, that was Commander Averres. No matter the situation, always the last to believe a battle was over. Makaerys had had to counter-command him and sound the retreat several times in the last skirmishes against Myr.

"What about your right flank?" Intervened Tovarro. "There are a lot of troops fighting there..." The fog of war and the rain were hell to distinguish who was fighting there, but every Volantene soldier could tell there was a furious battle.

"Perhaps, but it's the swamp. We can't exactly drain it..." If the knight with the turtle banner could have rolled his shoulders with the plate armour protecting his shoulders, he would certainly have done exactly that. "And I'm afraid there are reinforcements there who aren't exactly receptive to the King orders! Now that I think about it, these soldiers have banners similar to yours..."

 _Damn. So Kraxos and Carthagos are alive and arrived to the battle before us. I wonder how they did it? Now I just have to hope the Westerosi will kill them...after all they rushed to fight into the swamp the idiots..._

"Our priority is to destroy these makeshift bridges above the river." Declared Makaerys. "If we do, half their army will still be trapped on the other side and we will be free to push back the cavalry and infantry with these fish banners."

"This might be more difficult than you believe." Warned the Green knight. "The Blacks have hidden catapults behind their positions in the hills."

"How unfair...for them." Smirked the Essossi commander. "Right now, they can't fire, not unless they want to kill their own troops."

Makaerys drew his sword. All around him, his officers imitated him.

"Go to your men. Push the enemy back to the river or all is lost." As the men commanding the Parrots rode to their places, the Captain-General rose on his saddle and screamed to the thousands of Essossi gathered before him.

"LET THEM NOT TAKE POSITION! FOR THE GODS OF THE FOURTEEN FLAMES! CHARGE!"

In other occasions, a long and proud battle-speech would have been spoken, but now speed was of the essence, and for sellswords little details could be avoided when battle called.

"CHARGE!"

"FOR VOLANTIS!"

"FOR THE PARROTS!"

"MAKE THE FIRST DAUGHTER OF VALYRIA GREAT AGAIN!"

"AAATTTAACCCK! CCHHAAARGE!"

The heavy infantry, terror of Dothraki khalasars refusing to be bribed and small-sized Free Cities detachments, charged the field, a rank of long spears shredding everything on their path. Most of the time, the Green soldiers managed to run away from it, as they were already fleeing for their lives and had thrown away weapon and sometimes armour. The Black infantry who was rushing on their heels was less lucky. Their battle lines had ceased to be replaced by a free-for-all, and they were easy prey for the Volantenes.

Too bad for the Blacks, a signal from Makaerys to the archers in second line ravaged the Black second wave, and forced the enemy frontline to fight alone and unsupported. Facing a flexible line of heavy shields and pikes, the affair was murderous. For the enemy.

Westerosi were impaled on spears, pushed by the heavy shields, all the while the light cavalry Makaerys had harried them and took them on the flanks.

"RIVERRUN AND THE FISHFEED!" Screamed a knight bearing a trout helmet and about three or four scores of mounted men in the middle of the battlefield shouted in approval before launching their own counter-charge.

But the Volantene modified phalanx was well-organised, and the cavalry charge attempt ended abruptly when the horses decided that no, they couldn't jump these new opponents, that these weapons were too sharp and that if their owners wanted to fight anyway, they could do it without a courser.

"Remember our men they are supposed to take prisoners!" The Captain-General exclaimed to his soldiers, stopping in the act an imbecile who was about to slice the throat of a fallen man in costly gold and grey plate. Undoubtedly a noble of some sort. "We want the ransoms! Dead men have little value to their families!"

"Fuck that!" Screamed a young Westerosi on his right, who hacked one the pleading Black soldiers in half. "They killed my cousin, they can-" Two archers of the Fierce Parrots kicked him from behind, preventing him from finishing this anger tirade.

 _No ransom too? These Westerosi are a bit too thirsty on the bloodshed aren't they?_

Makaerys would have enjoyed for the madman to be the exception and not the rule, but as the battle progressed and the Parrots pushed their enemies back to the river, it became painfully evident this was not the case. The sellsword companies were willing, nah, eager to take prisoners. The men of the Sunset Kingdoms were eager to slay and massacre everything breathing or having a pulse. The laughter they made while slaughtering wounded warriors asking quarter...it was really disturbing.

Good thing the battle was turning in their favour. The initial arrival of the Volantenes had allowed their Westerosi allies to reform their forces on the left and block what had to be a ford in the distance, the Fierce Parrots were pushing front and centre, and the two imbeciles in the swamps were...doing whatever they did, which forced the Blacks to send more troops on the rights rather reinforce their positions. Plus whoever commanded the troops on the other bank had seemingly understood the battle was lost on this side, and instead of troops trying to cross the enemy was now running to regroup northwards.

 _A cold-headed commander. Pity, I would have liked destroying them in one-attack, but it looks like we will not be that lucky._

"What is this?" Blurted a cavalier on the first lines, pointing his mailed fist towards...flying rocks?

In one moment, Makaerys Belicho realised what had happened. With less and less of his own soldiers on the southern side, the enemy commander had repositioned his siege engines and was now striking his own soldiers to stop the Parrots offensive and give his troops more time to make a fighting retreat. It was anything but 'chivalrous' as the Westerosi understood it. But the sellswords were going to be hammered. Badly.

"If you're not willing to fire on your positions, you're not fighting to win..." Whispered the Volantene commander. The comment of Tovarro next to him was far shorter and injurious.

"Oh, shit."

And then the world exploded in flames.


	7. The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part IV

**Chapter 7**

 **The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part IV**

 **Lord Cregan Stark**

The Master of Winterfell could not help but let go a torrent of insults out of his mouth as a good part of the battlefield's centre went up in flames.

 _By the Old Gods, does everything must go wrong on this bloody day?_

The Northern army had been winning, damn the Greens and their Southron Gods to Hell! Their cavalry had been destroyed, their infantry routed. Lord Borros Baratheon's body had been demolished by Northern swordsmen in fury. The Black troops had retaken the ford and the river banks, allowing them to throw improvised bridges and pursue the reeling foot. They had been on the eve of a victory like few had been ever won in the last couple of centuries!

This had been before Cregan's first fall from his mount, alas. It had taken too much time to rise from the mud, take a new horse and receive the reports of all his bannersmen in this windy and rainy battlefield. Too much time to realise what was truly happening, but plenty of occasions on a mud-covered battlefield to fall for a second time from a horse mere moments later. The forces of the Green Dragon had been reinforced by an army of Essossi sellswords, and the bad weather had partially covered their approach. King Daeron had decided to intervene with his dragon and precede the new attack with a wave of dragonfire. Only the intervention of Moondancer and Queen Baela had saved the Black army from annihilation.

 _Thank the Old Gods I had kept a lot of our foot and horse in reserve. If I hadn't..._

The Lord Paramount shivered inside his armour, and it wasn't because of the cold. The sellswords, whoever they were and wherever they were coming from, had managed to arrive at the perfect time and place. Knowing the difficulties to coordinate an assault in these conditions, Cregan was betting that luck more than competence had been on their side, but it did not change the problem. In addition to the Green troops mustered by the Reach and the Stormlands, between six and twelve thousand men had arrived to reinforce them on this bloodstained and god-forsaken place.

 _It must be Volantene, Pentoshi or Lysene companies out of there. No one else would bring elephants in Westeros at the beginning of winter._

If the Blacks had had more men to send than their opponents, the Riverlands infantry could likely have slaughtered them and broken through their lines before the Green camp came to their rescue. But it wasn't the case. The alliance of Vale, River and Northern lords had been already outnumbered at the start of the battle, and now the straits were becoming desperate as the two dragons fought in the skies over their heads. A large number of men had been sent to hold the left flank, and had been able to inflict heavy casualties on the newcomers, giving the Black army a temporary reprieve. Too bad it was going to be a very short-lived one.

"We are not going to win if you keep the reserves on this side of the river, my Lord." Calmly asserted Lord Robar Bolton, with about as much warmth as he would have used to reprimand his squire if he brought him a meal too late.

"We are not going to have an easy win no matter what command I give." Whispered the Lord of Winterfell, watching the blue dragon unleashing a stunning column of flames. Moondancer largely avoided it. The troops below - Corbray and Stormlanders infantry locked together in a brutal struggle- did not. Screams of agony soared in the air, the cries of men begging for death. Every Northern and Riverlands lord that Cregan could see showed a face of funeral. Dragonfire was a weapon every warrior feared, and for good reason.

 _This is the third time the dragon is hitting our forces. We won't be able to hold for long at this rate._

Yes, their young Queen was doing a miraculous deed in distracting her cousin mounted on the Blue Queen...but it wasn't going to last. Cregan did not pretend knowing anything about dragon-riding or the flying tactics of the destroyed Freehold. But in the middle of a violent storm, common sense told him the biggest beast had the advantage. The heavier you are, the more difficult it is for the elements to destabilise something. It applied to fortresses and knights in armour; it was dubious dragons would be an exception. Worse, Tessarion had not been wounded like Sunfyre itself was at Dragonstone. This meant that unless an archer managed to shoot an arrow in the dragon's eye, Baela Targaryen had absolutely no chance to win. Given the speed, the evasion moves and the distance separating the hill from the flying animals, the likelihood of a bow-master accomplishing this impossible shot did not look good.

"Do we know where Lord Kermit Tully is fighting?"

"No, my lord." Grunted Wulfric Glover. "My men told me he was leading the attack on the Mullendore infantry when the Essossi arrived. No trace of him after this."

A new grimace barred the face of the Lord Paramount of the North, fortunately dissimulated from his bannersmen by his dark-grey helmet. Failing to know where one of the most important Lords of the Blacks at a moment like this was not surprising, as the rain, the dark clouds and the absence of the sun obscured everything. Still, it was hellishly inconvenient.

From his current position, Cregan could see only the centre of the battlefield. Not the left, where thousands of sellswords tried to cross the swamp-hellhole the plain had become when the river flooded it. Not the right, where the ford's defence had become a massacre, letting hundreds of corpses flow downstream ad provide a macabre scene of death. There was only the centre...but this was largely enough to see a presentation of raw nightmares. The gaze of the Northerner went from left to right...but there was no reason to celebrate. Thousands of men stabbed, pushed and kicked each other, running when the dragonfire came too close, gathering in light shield walls when the threat of archers manifested itself. Here and there, some Black and Green commanders rallied their troops...but not for long. One spear coming from nowhere, and the knight or the freerider was trying to close with his bare hands the hole in his chest. Then discipline collapsed. Men fled or fought by themselves, throwing their weapons and their bodies in a fury of destruction. Bands of clansmen came behind the first lines, cutting the throats of the harmed levies on the ground, ignoring the pleas of those unable to defend themselves. The Marchers marauders bloodily murdered the wounded on the other side. This was no great triumph. There was just killing, killing and dying under a torrential rain.

The combat was raging in the clouds too. A new inferno appeared from the maw of Tessarion, evaded by the Black dragonrider upwards. This time, the dragonfire lost itself in the rain and thankfully caused no more damage amongst the Black or Green ranks.

 _What to do? What to do?_

There were only two choices left to him. Commit everything to the melee or retreat. Attack or disengage. A glorious charge or a shameful retreat.

 _But things aren't that simple, eh Cregan?_

If the Lord of Winterfell chose the first option and the final assault failed, there would be nothing left of the Black cause in the Riverlands should the battle become a catastrophic butchery.

 _Be honest with yourself, Cregan. This battle is already a catastrophic butchery. It just remains to be seen how bad it will be. This is a day of disaster worthy of the name._

This was the last major Black army on the field, and it was under Northern command. Should they lose it, the cause once championed by Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen was going to die with it. The North and the Vale were probably safe from immediate reprisals, but Cregan feared neither his eldest son Rickon nor his youngest children would be able to safeguard House Stark and the North by themselves. The loss of prestige from this defeat would push rival Houses to rebel in the future. Not in a day or a fortnight, but it would happen. Winter was coming, and there would be no help from the South and the rest of the realm this time. No, only devastation and ruin reigned...the granaries of the Riverlands were gone. Those of the Reach had suffered untold devastation. And the Westerlands gold to pay for all this food had little chance to leave the Rock with the Ironborn reaving in the Sunset Sea and the Riverlords having slaughtered half of the Western nobility like pigs.

On the other hand, a retreat would allow them to save a part of the army...in theory at least. In reality, a fighting retreat was no simple affair, and even with the river, the catapults and the archers, the Lord of House Stark was not too sure his men had the nerves and the iron in them to withdraw in good order. Not to mention the presence of the blue dragon which could roast them all in a tide of fire.

"My lord, Ser Tytos Ryger is demanding reinforcements to the ford!"

Contemplating the messenger in his tattered armour and the faint traces of what had been a horse emblem on the breastplate moons ago, Cregan felt something heavy fall on his heart. With heavy reluctance, the Lord Paramount of the North was reminded where his duties fell.

"What is the situation?"

"The Marcher foot is rallying! Please, my Lord Hand! We need more men!"

 _Well, time to make the decision the lords expects from a Hand, Cregan. It comes with the title and all of that. Royals fight in the air and speak with dragons. Hands fight in the mud and speak with knights._

 _I suspect they are not going to like what my next orders will be, though._

"No."

The messenger opened his mouth like one of those big trout the fishermen took in the Green Fork and sold to the various markets.

"My Lord?"

"My compliments to Ser Ryger, but we hard-pressed here and I can't send more men to reinforce him. I command him to retreat on the other side the ford and fortify the positions we held this morning. If he finds Lord Tully, the same orders apply to him. "

The Riverlands nodded five or six times, before going back to the front he had just left, evidently in shock. Somehow, Ryger had really convinced his messenger the Northern cavalry was going to arrive to the rescue.

 _Maybe I overestimated the wits of some Riverlords..._

"You intend to retreat." The tone of Lord Robar Bolton could not be mistaken from a question. But there was no accusation or contestation in this sentence. As always the Master of the Dreadfort was a man incredibly difficult to read.

"If we stay here, we may still be able to win the day, but we won't have an army left." Cregan made a small move with his armoured right gauntlet in direction of the battlefield. "We can't afford that."

"I say we could take them." The voice of Horos Umber was more roar than speech. With his cousin Lord Tomard fighting somewhere in this rain, the big-boned fighter was commanding the reserves from the bannersmen of Last Hearth and the lands close to the Gift.

"Perhaps." The Hand of the Queen in the privacy of his own thoughts was exactly of the opposite opinion. Right at the moment, they had enough reserves to reinforce the left, the right or the centre. Not the three fronts of the battle at the same time and in sufficient strength. "But Westeros has bled enough for today."

 _We have bled enough for today. The North has not the population of the Reach. We can't afford to lose an army at every grand battle._

Cregan turned his head to see the bannersmen forming his personal cavalry guard, but there were no more protestations. Lord Hornwood seemed almost relieved for the slaughter to cease, despite having his armour intact and coloured black from all the men who had poured their blood on him. The Manderly knight in charge was eating an apple and showed no awareness the discussion had been discussed...an impression which was obviously false, leaving his liege lord the hidden message White Harbour didn't disagree with his actions. A few freeriders and minor Masters were looking like they were emerging from troubling dreams, but started to relay the orders.

 _Good. I would have hated to kill one of my bannersmen for refusing to heed my commands._

One by one, flags were raised upon the hill, and great warhorns were sounded for the men. Close to the improvised bridges which had been thrown after the death of the Baratheon van, the Northern barrow knights stopped their progression and tried to restore somewhat the discipline they had lost in hours of fighting. Cregan turned his head right and watched the messengers left at his disposition. A sign in the direction of one having two mermaids painted on his armour and the Lord of Winterfell put the next part of his plan into action.

"Find Lord Ryswell. Tell him he must bleed the Essossi dry before withdrawing to the camp."

"Yes, my lord!" The messenger from White Harbour sat on his horse and rode it like the demons of the Seven Hells were in pursuit.

A scout from the Rills was next, with a dark courser next to him making pitiful noises at each wind blast drenching human and animal in cold water.

"I need to know how many men are still fighting under Lord Ryger. Don't let them abandon the ford, the enemy will need to capture it if they want to pursue us with their cavalry."

 _Not that they have many horses left, I think. These Essossi had a lot of infantry but few mounted sellswords. And we destroyed the cavalry of Storm's End ourselves._

The Northerner nodded silently, before mounting his reluctant horse and departing for the crossing.

The first to separate were the dragons. Moondancer, lithe and swift, made an impressive turn and raced to the Black lines. Tessarion circled and roared, apparently perturbed by its smaller opponent abandoning the fight. The Blue Queen made an attempt to rush towards the Stark lines, but a firm reminder from the Targaryen mounting the flying beast was enough to turn it around. Well that and the score of arrows the bravest archers shot to discourage it. In a loud roar, Tessarion disappeared once more into the clouds.

"Prepare your archers, Lady Blackwood." Commanded the Lord Paramount of the North. "If the Green dragon comes back, I want them to pierce the wings and the weak points of the scales."

The aunt of the Lord of Raventree Hall bowed quickly before marching to her long-range warriors. Not wearing plate or chainmail like the lords and senior knights present around him, the Lady of House Blackwood was a very vision of lethality in leather. The view from the rear was particularly enticing...

 _It's not the moment to think about that, Cregan. You have more important problems to take care of._

Chasing the thoughts no hot-blooded male would blame him for – in fact Cregan noticed two or three scores of his personal guard admiring the view without any shame - the Lord of House Stark fixed the pale eyes of Lord Robar Bolton.

"Once all the troops we can save have crossed, fire the catapults with every oil and inflammable substance we have."

"There are Vale and River foot which are not going to make it."

There was no need to take a spyglass to know Lord Robar's affirmation was correct. Hundreds of men avid of paying back the Greens in blood, flesh and fire had been too rash in their slaughter eagerness. They were now too far from the river and many were already encircled by the sellsword companies. In other words, they were dead men walking. Even if he hadn't given the order to retreat, Cregan and his men would have had no hope to reach them in time.

The Umber vanguard, which had managed somehow to advance and not be pulverised by the enemy counterattack, may be able to survive. Of course they were led by Lord Umber and it took a very brave man to face the Lord of Last Hearth. Armed with a bloody warhammer in one hand and a two-handed sword in the other, Lord Tomard was creating a trail on his own for his sworn swords to escape.

"I know." Cregan sighed. "But it's us or them."

 _And I prefer it's them. I gave orders before and during battle to do nothing of the sort. Some men you can explain a long time the orders, they will still ignore them in the end._

Arrows began to rain on the Green troops. The Blackwood archers, who had had two or three turn of hourglasses to rest, were firing again to cover the retreat of the Black retreating troops.

 _Good thing I left a couple hundred men to carry the arrows from our camp. It would have been incredibly annoying to have a dragon and an army coming at us without anything to kill them._

The furious and desperate melee having raged was ending one fighter at a time. Under the fire of the archers once more, the Green infantry was pausing and taking abandoned shields to protect their tattered armours. The sellsword newcomers were slower to learn, but after five or six scores were pierced from head to toe, they too were forced to abandon their charge towards the river where thousands of corpses floated. The Umber formation was at last able to withdraw in good order, although Cregan would be surprised if one in three of their men were not left behind at the mercy of the Greens. Judging by the shouts of their huge champion and his captains, Lord Tomard Umber understood how close an affair it had been.

 _Let's hope he will learn from the experience...but I fear chicken will speak High Valyrian before this miracle of the Old Gods happen._

Hundreds of Black soldiers profited from the respite to cross the river on the wooden pontoons the Riverlanders had placed after the death of Lord Borros Baratheon. Some soldiers even crossed on the corpses of the fallen Reachers and Stormlanders. It was horrible to see that no matter how many the river carried away, they always were more bodies coming to thicken the stream in blood and guts.

As always with a retreat, the reactions varied wildly. Many levies had broken like wildlings did when they were defeated, throwing their weapons and everything of importance before running. The chivalry of Houses Manderly and Woolfield had reformed ranks. The heavy infantry of Winterfell, Hornwood and Cerwyn was holding the flanks and preventing a total rout.

 _Looks like we're going to escape and fight another day_.

The Stormlands and the Essossi pikes bearing on their banners a strange bird had realised the same thing, but they were too far away, too tired, and they knew very well what was going to happen if they crossed the river without their own archers in support. Cregan laughed a bit internally. Lord Borros Baratheon had done a great service to the Black cause by trampling the Green bowmen in his last furious charge. The archers of the Marches were tough opponents, forged by centuries of skirmishes and war with the Dornish.

"Collapse the bridges. Then fire the catapults." Said Cregan Stark, as Lord Tomard and his last men abandoned the southern bank, their role of rear-guard ended for today.

Less than a turn of hourglass later, the catapults struck true and the oil and the fire united with the already present dragonfire. In spite of the cold rain, the yellow and red colours spread fast across the carnage thousands of soldiers had made in a single day.

 _Let this damned battlefield burn_ , thought the Lord of Winterfell. _I have enough of this madness_.

 **Lord Royce Caron**

"For the Black Queen! Arrgghh!"

The battle cry was the last thing the man wearing the Velaryon colours screamed before the Lord of Nightsong pushed his sword in his throat. The removal of the steel from the fatal wound in a quick twist was followed by a gurgle, a lot of blood...and the fall of the Black soldier, the light in his eyes no doubt disappearing behind his fish-shaped helmet.

"Fifteen." Told Lord Royce, trying to regain his breath after the vicious duel he had just fought with the knight of the Narrow Sea, and thanking the Seven his last feint had been manifestly unknown on Driftmark.

"You're getting old, my lord! Eighteen!" Exclaimed one of the lowborn sworn swords he kept in his service, ramming his axe in the skull of a muddy men-at-arm. The veteran, going by the name 'Honest Jon' – a name which was probably false now that the master of House Caron thought about it - acted in the battle like a hungry pig with fresh food, throwing himself at his opponent without any elegance or skill. The tiredness of the enemies and the force the axeman put behind his blows ensured this lack of tactics was efficient, though.

"There is no respect for my old bones anymore!" Half-joked the Marcher lord, spitting on the corpse of the man he had just killed and passing his tongue upon his teeth. The result was the unpleasant taste of his own blood.

 _I sure hope this one didn't break me more teeth...I have lost far enough of them before today._

Seeing there were no more Blacks to kill on the part of the battlefield where he was fighting, Royce planted his longsword in the mud and demanded water. The moment he had gone with his men into the carnage had not been long...but the ache he felt in his bones, arms, legs and heads was having an effect like a thousand ringing hammers.

 _War is the affair of young men...I'm no longer one_.

Drinking lengthily at the gourd of one of his squires had found somewhere, Royce's headache slowly lifted. There was nothing he could do for the exhaustion or the dragonfire-created fog however. The putrid smoke was still hard on his breathing, making him cough violently three times. Emptying the small recipient, Lord Caron took another and drank it at the same rapidity. Only then the master of Nightsong examined his surroundings. All around him, his men were falling on their knees, with most posing their weapons on the ground and asking for food, water or the permission to sleep. Some were looting the corpses. There were knights searching for abandoned horses and whatever thing might be of use for their fortune.

 _I'm supposed to tell them to make prisoners...but the Blacks fought like demons. I'm not sure if anyone tried to surrender...or if our men were in the mood to accept._

Stopping his thoughts about the possible awful fate of the prisoners of war, the Marcher Lord watched the desolation created by the battle. It was still possible to see the ruins of the Bosworth Bridge from where they stood, but not the hills behind that. The enemy was not visible anymore, withdrawing behind the fog, the rain and the terrible storm. Worse, the sun was now falling and approaching the eve of winter meant the night would not be long in coming. Thousands, no, tens of thousands corpses were lying in the small valley, in the river, on the slopes. The crows were descending in black murders to eat their content. The war had kept them well-fed, but this battle was a monumental celebration by their ghastly standards. So much dead flesh, and the survivors too tired to bury their fallen.

"Did we win the battle, my lord?"

The question was coming from the lips of the young Ser Marran Selmy, the third son of the Lord of Harvest Hall. Knighted more or less two years ago by Royce himself, the young man had stayed at the camp today with the disgraced Stormlanders, proving he had a good day upon his shoulders. His armour and his shield had still been well-used, the three stalks of wheat represented on both protections having turned red and black. The front of the Selmy shield was also marked by a couple of deep slashes, sign a Black soldier had tried his best to demolish it with pure rage.

 _Now if only Lord Borros had had half of Marran wits...now that's a lord I would have followed to the Seven Hells._

"We're holding the battlefield Marran." The Lord of Nightsong answered, drinking in a large gourd with satisfaction, as this one contained the powerful deep red wine of Grassy Vale. "Chasing the enemy away from the battlefield is always considered a victory ...does it answer your question?"

"Yes, my lord. It does." The tiny smile of Marran Selmy did not reach his pale blue eyes as he removed his helmet and let his light brown hair know the sensation of the rain. "But I watched and saw none of our men pursuing the enemy. Was it not one of your teachings that hunting down the enemy after the battle was half of the victory?"

"You were a good squire, Marran." Told Royce, forsaking for an instant the great gap existing between the second most powerful Lord of the Marches and a third son of the same kingdom. Frankly, Royce Caron was astonished the young Selmy was able to remember what he had said five or six years ago. To be sure, none of the three or four young boys serving at Nightsong at the same time would be able to remember it.

 _Too busy running after the whores, the drinks, the gold and the glory. And today these squires are dead because they followed our liege lord in his stupid cavalry charge._

"Thanks to you, my lord."

"My father wanted my squiring in your castle to be a punishment, you know."

"I was aware." Retorted Royce. Lord Durran Selmy and himself had never been close in their young years. The Master of Harvest Hall had been too busy travelling to Storm's End, while as the Heir of Nightsong Royce Caron was learning how to rule and chase the Dornish 'bandits' in the Red Mountains. Their only conversation lasting more than the polite greetings had not ended in good terms, and several victories won in the jousts of the Reach had cemented a deliberate ignorance.

"My father wanted to send me at Grandview. My eldest brother Baldric was squired at Storm's End, and Gulian learnt to fight at Griffin's Roost."

His interlocutor nodded politely, trying to ignore the massive piles of corpses spread on the battlefield as the water from the skies progressively drenched the fires. Nothing very unusual there. Many lords of the Stormlands had believed Lord Borros to be the perfect antlered warrior, and Lord Selmy had been one of those. It stood to reason his sons would be squired by the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, or at least one of the brutes serving as his bloody swords.

"Your father did not come with us."

"His leg was not allowing him to ride." The grimace Marran Selmy made was evidence in itself how much he believed this weak excuse. "But Badric and Gulian were with the centre when it charged."

"May I present my condolences, then?" Demanded 'Honest' Jon with his usual bluntness.

It was extremely rude, but the lowborn soldier had a point. As far as Nightsong's master had been able to see, not many knights or lords had survived the terrifying counter-charge led by the giants of House Umber.

 _If we hadn't had a dragon and an army of sellswords as reinforcements, they would have torn us apart. Oh, fine they tore us apart. It's just we managed to inflict them enough casualties for them to retreat..._

"I don't want to speak about it until we've found them." The voice of Ser Marran was not exactly pleased.

And yes, Royce understood. Being a third son, even unwanted, was one thing. But if his eldest brothers were indeed dead, the recently knighted Selmy would be the Heir of Harvest Hall. And it changed everything...Lord Durran's friends and allies were dead or dying on the gloomy, blood-soaked battlefield. There were going to be...adjustments in the power struggle of the Stormlands and the lords having rallied the Green banners. House Caron had survived in sufficient strength not to appear weak in the eyes of the ambitious. For House Selmy, the next moons certainly promised to be less pleasant...

"My lords, we have won a great victory today!"

Hundreds of men turned their heads to see Lord Estermont and a score of immaculate knights advancing on the slopes of the valley. Their armours, shields and banners were pristine; only the legs of the horses were touched by mud. No need to be a great commander to know the Turtle Lord had decided to come when the fight came to an end.

Lord Royce pushed a large sigh and did his best not to stab the late newcomer with his sword. It would not do for King Daeron to execute him for the murder of a fellow lord after tens of thousands men died in a bloody victory. However nothing in this world would be enough to make him congratulate Lord Estermont for arriving late and in perfect appearance, and that included all the gold of Casterly Rock. There were limits to everything and Royce was not a court flatterer.

 _At least the bards will say we Stormlords are doing our best to imitate the animals on our banners_.

Considering what had happened in this battle, this was not exactly an amusing thought.


	8. Winter is here

**Chapter 8**

 **Winter is here**

 **King Daeron I Targaryen**

When a servant came to wake up as agreed a great turn of hourglass after dawn, Daeron groaned in a boar-like manner. His head was killing him. His legs were in pain. His back ached. His lips were dry. The urge to vomit what little he had in his belly was pressing.

"Water." He managed to croak in a very un-kingly voice.

A cup of water - a beautiful-carved wooden cup with a brilliant sapphire decorating it surrounded by a dragon of gold - was handed to him. Daeron seized it and poured it in his throat like it was the sweetest Arbor Gold. The desire to retch which prisoner in his throat disappeared.

"More."

The cup was refilled and Daeron emptied it in the same manner. His thoughts cleared a bit. The pain of his head started to go away. Two more cups and he was able to stand at the edge of the small couch having served as his bed. The view of his magnificent armour, pristine and devoid of mud, raised his spirits. The servant was thanked and commanded to leave the tent. Daeron put his head in his hands.

 _Was the last day a nightmare_?

No. The souvenirs came back, as unpleasant as ever. His armour was not showing the marks of steel blows because dragon-riding was not the type of fight one used a melee weapon. The uncountable bottles of wine he had emptied last evening had not changed that. Except now his head was hurting like Tessarion had decided to walk on it. For a moment, Daeron felt shame. He was King of Westeros, by the Seven! He was supposed to give the example, not drown his sorrows in a tankard of bad wine!

 _But you were an example no? Half of the men in the camp were drunk before you_!

Yes, half of the men in the camp. Half of the men...the hundreds who were still alive. Sorrow filled Daeron's heart. Of the ten thousands men-at-arms, freeriders and knights who had mustered to fight for the battle at Bosworth Bridge, so few remained. Drowning his problems in the ale, wine and whatever liquor had been stored by the quartermasters was not going to solve his problems.

 _Bah_ , whispered the amoral voice in his head. _Half of your lords and the sellswords are in the same state. We needed these drinks_.

This may be true. No, this was true. The vision of a Peak knight dancing on a couple of empty barrels and singing had been one of the funniest moments in this entire campaign.

But his bannersmen deserved better than that. The merchants, the septons, the smallfolk he had sworn to protect deserved better than that. In the future, maybe a king would be content to drink and whore his way for decades of reign, but Daeron swore by the Seven this wasn't going to happen to him. He wasn't his brother Aegon. He for sure wasn't Rhaenyra, that woman who had made her debuts as a lovely princess and died as a bloated and hateful woman.

Pushing on his trembling legs, Daeron stood up and marched on the soft green carpet covering the floor of his tent. Like the majority of the furniture here, it had been a gift of Lord Hightower when he was knighted on the field of battle. A lot of tapestries, weapons and cups had been presented to him on that day near the Honeywine, two or three days away from Oldtown. The sun had been brilliant, the birds singing and the fields had been green. There had been a battle of course but the good days of summer were still reigning. Autumn had not yet come.

 _And with autumn came the butchery. Autumn damned all of us_.

Too many had already received the Stranger's judgement in this war. Too many had died at Bosworth Bridge. Too many had died for the Iron Throne and claims that were so useless when castles were sacked and the fields burned.

Breathing loudly and trying not to think too much about the dreadful scenes he had been able to watch on the back of Tessarion the last day, Daeron called his squires back. To his surprise, only one of the two young faces he expected answered his call; Owen Oakheart was now harbouring a small scar on his left cheek and a bandage on his sword arm. Of Orys Cafferen, the squire he had accepted at his father-in-law insistence, there was no trace.

"Where is my wayward squire, Owen?" His voice was far from his normal tone, the words were escaping upon his tongue. Damning the wine and the aftermath of the battles to the Seven Hells, Daeron repeated his question until the question was pronounced in something approaching the common Westerosi tongue.

"Dead, your Grace." Informed him the young Oakheart who was serving him since the First Battle of Tumblestone, giving him another cup full of water. The leader of the Greens emptied it in one gulp and added more for his memories than for his squire.

"I thought I gave both of you the order to stay with the reserves."

Owen Oakheart caught the hidden reproach in his sentence and answered with a disdainful face.

"Orys followed Lord Baratheon's glorious charge." The intonation put on the last two words was so accented that Daeron was for one or two instants tempted to laugh. Ultimately, he renounced. No doubt a glorious charge was exactly what Lord Borros had intended when he had...well, calling it a plan would be overly generous, wasn't it?

If given a glance, it had been an audacious attempt to break the Black lines defending the bridge, throwing thousands of heavy cavalry through the routing Vale infantry and finish the war in one big melee. Extremely audacious and risky, but if it had worked the Master of Storm's End would have been the hero of this rainy day.

It had not worked. The Blacks had known what sort of opponent they had in Lord Borros thanks to their thrice-damned spies, and the infantry guarding the bridge had just been the bait. When Borros and his entire cavalry had been on the other side, the trap had closed and the Stormlords had been massacred without mercy.

Lord Borros Baratheon, Lord Durran Grandison, Lord Simon Fell, Lord Harrold Mertyns, Lord Byron Wensington and Lord Renly Gower – and those were only the names of the main lords coming at first thought - had died against the Stark horse. They had fought ferociously, but in the end they had been encircled and destroyed one by one.

"You found his body?" Asked the King after a moment to recollect his thoughts.

"Yes, your Grace. I mean, I think it's his body. He fell in the mud and was trampled by a courser when a Blackwood arrow took him in the throat."

 _Damn it. I thought I had corrected his bad habit of not lacing correctly his armour_...

And now Orys Cafferen was gone, like thousands of young men from Storm's End, the Rainwood, the Marches and the other regions of the Stormlands. They had come for glory and the chance of a knighthood at Bosworth Bridge. The luckiest ones had received a grave of mud. The unluckiest ones had disappeared in the flows of the river never to be seen again, or been crippled for the rest of their lives.

"Help me with my armour." Finally said Daeron as the young Oakheart and himself looked at each other with the silence becoming unbearable. After all what could he say? Telling his regrets would not convince the Stranger to release the dead. Cursing his family, his cousins, his grandfathers and the Lord Paramounts for their stubbornness and their ambitions would serve nothing. Assuming they heard him from the Seven Hells, they would not show him the path to end this war. They never had this wisdom. "I need to reassure these Volantene sellswords we have the situation in our grasp after our...victory."

The last word was awfully difficult to pronounce. Bosworth Bridge had been a victory for the Green cause, yes...as much as Maegor the Cruel had won battles after battles against the Faith Militant and never saw an end to the uprisings against his rule. Or the 'victory' Queen Rhaenyra had obtained by taking King's Landing, losing everything in the moons after.

 _Should we give these battles the name 'Bosworth victories'? I already tell these court-jesters tell me 'one more victory your Grace'. One more victory and I will be able to ride back to the capital with Tessarion since I will be alone._

Fortunately Owen had learnt to sense the mood of his sovereign, and every protection from the gauntlets and the hauberk to the cuirass were donned in near-silence, with only the occasional 'good', 'tighter' or 'looser' to escape their lips.

At last, Daeron was ready, the only piece of armour not worn was his helmet; this golden-silver part of his armour was far too limiting for his vision and he did not plan to fight a battle today. Crossing the threshold of the tent, the young King felt what little good mood he had in his bones flying away.

And the reason of this anger was the little white mantle starting to recover the ground. The mud had frozen during the night, but as the men-at-arms had been lighting a lot of fires and been drunk no one had really thought about it. Opening his armoured fist, Daeron let several snowflakes add a touch of white. It seemed...pure.

"Snow."

The maesters he had studied under had each told him their experiences with the cold and white substance in their own way, but during the long summers and his travels in the Reach he had never had seen it with his own eyes.

"Snow." Agreed an old man with a tired look. With some surprise, Daeron recognised him as Lord Shermer. The old Reach lord had stayed guarding the camp, which when one thought about it had been one of the wisest things to do. "Winter has come for us, your Grace."

Daeron made a quick nod of assent but repeated nonetheless the word. "Snow."

In other occasions, the King would have been enraptured by the large white snowflakes falling from the grey skies. Not today. Not when there was so much to do...and now time itself was running short. For him. For the Green cause. For the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

"It is going to be a hard winter, your Grace." Advised an old knight standing next to the ageing Lord Shermer. From his protective stance and the traits they shared, it was likely the man was a cousin or sharing a parent. And they had a point, Stranger damn it all.

The hill where their camp stood was close to the invisible limit separating the lands of the Rivers and those belonging to the Crown. If the snow was falling here, then every cove, plain, river, hamlet and fort north of the Trident was already covered by feet of snow.

A hard winter indeed. Sometimes the only kingdoms to see snowfalls were the Vale and the North. The high passes and impassable summits of the Westerlands might on occasion take a grey-white colour. The most inhospitable places of the Riverlands, north of Seagard and the Twins, were sometimes struck by long freezes and bitter gales. But it had been a long time, several decades at least, since it had not snowed south of the Red Fork.

That Daeron watched it with a growing circle of warriors and sellswords was an ill omen. More would come, as this was just the beginning of the glacial season. King's Landing was going to feel the icy grasp for the first time this century.

The few harvests which had survived the bloodshed of the civil war were condemned. Whatever holdfasts and villages which had been destroyed and not rebuilt would be forgotten until spring succeeded to the dark season.

 _Winter is coming...and our granaries have been destroyed_.

This was a chilling sensation. In every winter so far since Aegon the Conqueror had landed and forced the disparate kingdoms to submit, the Riverlands and the Reach had been providing a fair amount of the supplies that the realm needed to survive during the cold months. Unfortunately, both had been the scenes of vicious battles which had despoiled anything edible.

Daeron had hoped there would be time to bring this campaign to a victorious end. It looked like he had been wrong. And now the chances of defeating the Northerners on a climate they were born and bred for...the South would clearly need a score of miracles to achieve this.

"Lord Shermer, please send messengers to Lord Caron and Captain-General Belicho. Their presence is solicited for a council of war."

"Of course, your Grace."

The old Reacher bowed largely before marching away from the growing crowd.

This was going to be a very unpleasant meeting. Daeron didn't need to have his Master of Whisperers in the vicinity to know it. Following the battle they had just fought, he had less than seven thousands men fit to raise a weapon and most of them were Essossi.

Whether he wanted to admit it or not, the only manner to end this war would be to negotiate with Lord Cregan Stark and the Blacks.

 _This could have been worse_ , whispered the treacherous voice in his head. _You could have lost_.

Somehow, this thought brought no comfort at all.

 **Balon Pyke**

"WE PUSH! HO!"

Damning his royal brother, the weak greenlanders gods and the world in general, Balon pushed with all the strength in his arms.

The heavy ram, built with the prow of two longships and several chariots they had pillaged in the reaving of Lannisport, advanced laboriously on the ruined street leading to the castle of Southshield.

"WE PUSH! HO!"

If it had not been for that dreadful rain of the last days, the ram could have been brought much faster. Today however it seemed the Drowned God was smiling upon them. The cold had finally toughened the ground for the great ram to be pushed. Nothing could save the cowards hiding behind their ramparts now.

"FASTER! FASTER BAND OF SHELLFISHES! LORD CAPTAINS OF BOAT-WASHING!" Screamed Lord Urragon Goodbrother, who had been the day before named Master of Sieges by King Dalton. "THIS RAM SHOULD BE ALREADY AT THE GATE! FLOATING COFFINS! BILLIONS BLUE, BLISTERING BARNACLES! FASTER! ARE YOU MEN OR ARE YOU WORMS? FASTER! PUSH THIS RAM!"

"HO!"

A part of Balon wanted nothing better at that moment to stop pushing the ram, stand up and impale this arrogant Wyk weakling with his axe while others fed him his balls. The Drowned God willing, he soon would have the pleasure to do it. The last Master of Sieges had been slain by the Red Kraken himself the last day when the general assault ordered on the walls had failed.

"WE PUSH! HO!"

At the top of Southshield's dungeon, flew the white rose of House Serry, shaming the Ironborn by its very existence. Three assaults and the banner of the greenlanders still flew. A volley of arrows was realised from the walls, and a man screamed behind Balon. The Ironborn young man did not turn back his head. If the screamer was seriously wounded, he would be replaced. If not, he would continue to do his duty for the Iron King.

"WE PUSH! THE GREENLANDERS GODS FEAR US!"

They came closer from the white-grey walls and as the ram advanced the sellswords and the poorer reavers charged forwards protected by wooden palisades and their large shields. A few archers of Tyrosh and Lys hired after their great victories of Fair Isle and their raids of the Western coast shot their arrows, forcing for a few moments the defenders to redirect their fire elsewhere. They paid it dearly, as the archers pierced them and the ram rolled over their corpses.

Balon grunted when another rain of arrows slammed into the ram. He gritted his teeth when the wooden roof above his head started to burn. He was an Ironborn, and bastard or not this ram was going to pulverise the greenlanders' gates.

"WATER!" Shouted someone. "THE RAM IS IN FLAMES!"

Balon did not move. A few of the men abandoned their task on the spot, fleeing the promised inferno and bringing the progression of the ram to a halt. These cowards didn't go far. The ram was now close from the walls, and at this distance the big crossbows the levies of the Reach were so fond of could not miss. One, two three, four men served as target practises. Two of the survivors were killed by Urragon, who had fled into another of his rages and was agonising them in insults. Balon transpired like he had been plunged into boiling water, but did not move. The warmth was getting really unbearable...

At last, the content of several buckets was poured on the fire and two scores of fresh faces were pushed to fill the losses. The familiar smell of urine dirtied his nose, but Balon breathed heavily in relief. It was better than burning alive.

"WE PUSH!" Bellowed Balon, a sound repeated by thousands of voices.

"HO! FOR THE RED KRAKEN AND THE DROWNED GOD!"

The arrival of fresh men accelerated the effort. Feet by feet, the Ironborn were approaching the castle. Thanks to his position at the top of the ram, Balon could see scores of ladders and large sections of rubble be strategically emplaced at regular intervals. The reign of the Reach archers was coming to an end.

It was at this moment horns sounded behind him. The royal horns of his half-brother the King. The man who had restored the pride of the Iron Islands, taken the sword Nightfall as his personal weapon and broken the Lannister power forever. Dalton Greyjoy, the Master and Lord Reaper of Pyke. Known these days from Volantis to the frozen wastes of the North by his war name.

"THE RED KRAKEN!"

"DALTON!"

"DALTON!"

"DALTON AND THE DROWNED GOD!"

There was no order, a least none Balon could see or hear from his position where he pushed the ram. Not that it mattered a lot for him because his arms were in fire. They had pushed the bloody thing from the beaches to here, did someone realise how bloody tiring it was? Of course not!

And then suddenly next to him were thousands of Ironborn running and screaming their war screams. The final assault had started. In a last acceleration, the men marched over the pile of corpses which had not been removed from the first days. The arrows had stopped and now the great doors protecting Southshield were at the reach of his palm and-

Balon screamed in agony, joining his tortured voice to hundreds of countless Ironborn. A burning black liquid had poured from over his head, a feat made possible by the hundreds of arrows and rocks the greenlanders had thrown at them. The protection of the roof was cracked, letting the fluid pour on their defenceless heads. His hands were twitching under the black mixture. Not hesitating one instant, the young bastard tried to remove this tar-like substance.

 _May the Drowned God curse them to all eternity! Why are they sending us boiling tar? Oh_...

Balon did not even try to think. He just reacted and fled the dying ram. Just in time too. The greenlanders were now throwing the fire arrows again. It was devastating. One moment Balon was crawling away from the ram, the other there was a gigantic bonfire at the position he had stood. The agony screams were terrible and the men atop the ramparts howled in triumphed.

Balon threw himself behind one of the wooden palisades, avoiding a quick end at the point of several arrows.

 _How many of the damned things do these weaklings have_?

Watching right and left, the eldest salt son of Lord Goron Greyjoy watched with anger the attack be repulsed with heavy losses. The armours worn by the Ironborn were far heavier than these little things equipping their enemies, but the powerful impact of the crossbows shooting and shooting again was piercing them with ease.

 _They are cowards_.

In a sinister crack, a ladder was destabilised, sending half a score of good reavers in the middle of the burning ram. As they were already covered in oil and tar, the Ironborn transformed themselves into living torches.

For a moment, Balon was paralysed by this atrocious death but only for a moment. His faith in the Drowned God returned, filling his arms and his legs with new determination. He rushed to a new wave of ladders being brought, jumping over the corpses and helped them carry it to the base of the fortress...but they had not the time to raise it that the wooden construction was already in flames.

"By the Storm God it's impossible!" Roared a reaver next to Balon, trying to stem a serious injury on his arm with a bit of rope and what had been a tunic. "They should run out of arrows!"

While privately he agreed with this affirmation, Balon watched and didn't notice any fall-down in the volleys sent their way. The greenlanders may be down to their last ten arrows or they had enough to do this for the last moon. There was no way to know. In the mean time, Balon and all the ladder bearers still alive withdrew to the palisades.

"This isn't working." Grumbled an old man with a scythe tattooed on his cheek. "We must wait-"

"ATTACK! ATTACK FOR THE DROWNED GOD!"

The exclamation thundered across the battlefield, silencing a good part of the Ironborn and the defenders scream. From the rear a new ram was pushed, scores of ladder and even a light scorpion. Hundreds more reavers in heavy armour were coming on the battlefield, armed with large warhammers, masses and axes.

The fury of the assault tripled in intensity. The greenlanders fires and projectiles faltered. In the middle of the formations a black-caped man marched, armoured with a bloody gold and black plate. Each reaver who faltered was cut in several parts by the dark sword in his hand. His head, devoid of any helmet, let his long dark hair flow in the cold wind.

He was Balon's half-brother and King. He was the Red Kraken.

"OPEN THE PATH TO HIGHGARDEN!" Screamed the Iron King. "ONWARDS! THE KRAKEN REIGN SUPREME!"

The ram was brought to the gates, the debris of the first one removed quickly. The archers on the walls were cowering in fright as hundreds of the reavers had taken positions with their bows, and more palisades were placed to protect them. Several ladders had been placed in position and this time the screams of the Reach vermin told everyone that the warriors of the Drowned God had reached them with sword and axe.

The blows of the ram were sounding like a predator having corner his prey. Southshield was theirs, and its pathetic garrison knew it.

"NOOOO!"

The scream was so heartbreaking Balon's head turned on its own. Who dared screaming in such a fashion? There were Ironborn and-

The Ironborn's thoughts turned to horror as he saw it was Lord Captain Botley who was screaming, bent over the body of Balon's half-brother the King. Abandoning everything related to the siege, Balon and hundreds of reavers ran to form a wall of steel and flesh. On the ground, you could be the greatest warrior of the entire world and it wouldn't matter. If he wasn't protected, the Red Kraken was going to die.

"PROTECT THE KING! PROTECT THE KING!"

But as Balon took a small shield and took his place in the wall, he saw it wouldn't matter. A white-coloured arrow had taken Dalton just under his chin. From the throat to the neck, the greenlander's projectile had pierced everything. There was too much blood and no healer had the skill to mend this wound.

"What is dead-" The Red Kraken whispered, before his throat gurgling in blood. His head rolled over and his eyes closed forever.

For close to a turn of hourglass Balon was stunned into immobility and silence. It was impossible. Dalton Greyjoy was the Red Kraken. He had survived hundreds of wounds, pillaged uncountable citadels and merchant hulls. His name was feared from Pyke to Asshai! Dalton couldn't be dead! It was impossible!

 _Not like this. Not with an arrow when we're about to win_!

"I KILLED THEIR KING! I KILLED THEIR KING!" The joyous announce was coming from a small figure on the ramparts with a Serry tabard and holding the crossbow responsible for the kingslaying.

"RRRAAAAGGHHH!" The Ironborn army screamed like one wild animal. A Harlaw captain threw his spear like a javelin to slay the murderer of the iron King, but the Kingslayer crouched behind the stone protections.

"KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!" Ordered Lord-Captain Tristifer Botley. "DROWN THEM IN A SEA OF BLOOD! NOTHING ELSE WILL APPEASE THE WRATH OF THE DROWNED GOD!"

Hundreds of men abandoned the protection of the palisades to hurl themselves at the fort, but they had not made ten steps that two scorpions which had been hidden until then entered in action. The greenlanders regained their minable courage and slaughtered the wave of attackers. Scores of men who defended Dalton's body were joining him in the embrace of death. The second ram was in fire. The ladders were destroyed. The Ironborn were losing the initiative and no one was screaming loud enough to take command.

Balon did not know who shouted first the treacherous order. Maybe it was these Codd bastards. Maybe it was Kenning the Coward. Maybe it was one of these Volmarks who loved their jewels more than the glory of battle.

"THE KING IS DEAD! TO THE SHIPS!"

"TO THE SHIPS!"

"THE KING IS DEAD! GO BACK TO THE SHIPS!"

Putting the shield of his support arm over his head to intercept the debris of a ladder, Balon saw an entire group of Greyjoy reavers carrying the corpse of the Red Kraken to the beach. It was a vision which planted a stake in the heart of every Ironborn. At this sight, entire crews were turning heels and abandoning the siege. A rout was forming. The Ironborn having a spine were decimated by the greenlanders bolts, boiling oil and arrows.

"NO! STAY! WE MUST AVENGE OUR KING!"

But hundreds of men were deaf to the supplications coming from Botley's mouth. King Dalton alive, they had not managed to storm Southshield by surprise like they had done with Greenshield. Now the Red kraken was dead and there was no one to rally them. Balon was a salt son of the previous Lord Reaper, the captains of the Iron Fleet were not going to listen to him. No one in the ranks of the great reavers and lords was respected above the others.

 _And Dalton had no sons of his rock wife. Not that I blame him, that Farwynd witch was a true harpy_.

His soul dying piece by piece, Balon started to withdraw. The day was lost, but if he rallied a few scores of Greyjoy troops maybe Botley would be impressed with him. Maybe this siege would not be a frigging disaster like it promised to be.

Screaming and promising a few women he had put under thraldom since Lannisport, Balon Pyke saw a group of fifteen or sixteen reavers gather around him as they regrouped near the ruins of a tavern. It was at this moment hope disappeared. A man pointed his mutilated hand towards the sea. Towards the sails.

And these ones were not belonging to the Ironborn.

 **Lord Alan Redwyne**

"We have them, my lord."

Lord Alan Redwyne bared his teeth in a parody of smile at the remark made by his flag captain. The Master of the Arbor lowered his Myrish spyglass and answered in a pleased voice.

"The conditions are ideal for us, yes."

Despite the contrary winds and the atrocious weather, despite the general incompetence of the imbeciles Otto Hightower had left to rule Oldtown, the Redwyne fleet was arriving in time to salvage something the Shield Islands. Southshield at least still resisted to the enemy if the colours seen at the top of its highest tower were any indication.

But the real opportunity came from the fact three-fourths of the Ironborn longships had been dragged ashore, leaving the Reach fleet with a comfortable superiority. His war galleys, carracks and the converted merchants included in his fleet were more heavily armed than the typical Ironborn raider. After so many days of storms and incredibly high waves, the conditions were calmer and the wind was with them, allowing his ships to form a true line of battle.

No doubt this advantage was not going to last. But the crews of the warships under his command were well-rested whereas the Ironborn had been trying to storm a citadel for the better part of the day. One hundred and thirty-five true warships plus fifty converted hulls against a bit less than three hundred longships, most of them crewless and abandoned on the beaches. Oh yes, these were odds he could fight with.

"Signal general to the fleet, Luthor." Alan Redwyne stalled an instant to augment the excitation of the officers around him. "Engage the enemy in Gull formation...and give them no quarter."

The sinister black-red flag, usually reserved for pirates and the scum of the seas, was raised on hundreds of masts. Thousands of cheers mounted from the throats of the Reach sailors.

"You have seen your last dawn, Ironborn."

The three hundred-oars _Arbor Spear_ had the honour of claiming the first kill, ramming a longship with Goodbrother colours and cutting it in half in the same move.

The Green Admiral firmly intended to send more of them by the bottom before the sunset.


	9. The Dying Storm

**Chapter 9**

 **The Dying Storm**

 **Lord Tremaron Manwoody**

As his horse passed the last dune between him and the oasis, Lord Manwoody shivered. The sun had set several turns of hourglasses ago, and the night was placing its cold embrace on the desert. His cloak was readjusted as the ride continued and a quick thanks was muttered for his wife who had convinced him to take the warm gloves and the warm cloak. The nights were cold in the dunes, but the last moons had seen a record of freezing times rarely seen in the last twenty years. As much as the smallfolk prayed in front of the altars, those having an easy access to a maester knew beyond doubt winter was coming.

The hooves of the horses behind him screeched on the sand. The three men mounting the light coursers were some of his most trusted sworn swords, the few he could leave his home with and not fear for his security. They knew their way across the shifting mass of sands...and they carried the torches, providing the only source of light in this obscurity. The sky was covered in dark clouds presaging nothing good, preventing anyone from tracing a course with the stars. This was a weather few Dornish were used to. Then again, it was a weather few of the humans living south of the Neck saw outside the bad season. A season which unfortunately was near for Dorne. White ravens had already been sent to several holdfasts of the Northern Reach; it was only a matter of days before it was the turn of Yronwood, Sunspear and the rest of the Dornish castles. In a way, this was why Tremaron was on a horse in the middle of nowhere.

The oasis becoming more precise in the distance was far removed from the sand caravans and the patrols ordered by the Great Lords of the Princedom. In happier times, it had been known as the Oasis of the Pale Dreams; a name given by the young Yronwood knight who had discovered it. A small village had grown around the dwells and the modest verdure growing around the water. An inn and one or two meeting places had been built. House Yronwood had been careful not to kill the settlement with high taxes, and one or two merchants had established regular outposts, selling the principal necessities a human required to survive in the desert. If Manwoody remembered correctly the tales, there had been a charmer of snakes or two attracting the crowds.

All this activity had ended when the Targaryens declared war to Dorne over a century ago. The Oasis of the Pale Dreams and the village of Pale Dwell had been a place of refuge for the routed Dornish troops, who had hoped the tens of thousands Reachers and Stormlanders pursuing them would not find them here surrounded by the dunes.

Unfortunately, the Reachers could not discover them but the dragons had no such limitations. In one passage, the dragon Vhagar had set aflame nearly everything in the defenceless oasis. Hundreds inhabitants and the refugee had tried to escape. Some of them had succeeded. Those who had stayed died. A dragon was not a foe humans could best with mere long spears and fragile bows. The defenders had died...and with them the oasis and all the bright future it represented had perished. When Aegon the Tyrant recalled back his hordes of sellswords and butchers, only ruins remained and House Yronwood was severely lacking the money to rebuild. Besides, none of the survivors wanted to go back. The place was now a centre of sorrow and it was not long before rumours of ghosts and haunted oasis circulated.

The Oasis of the Pale Dreams was swallowed back by the desert, with only occasional travellers in mission for House Yronwood or House Uller stopping there. It was simply too far away from the towns, castles or the shore to be visited on a mere whim.

But it had water, a smaller pool compared to the one which had been rendered into steam by the flying reptile. It had some trees. For a reunion like the one he had been appointed to, the place was perfect.

The halt order was finally given. Several horses tied to the score of palm trees told the Lord of Kingsgrave he wasn't the first to reach the ruined village. Not that there was much left apart the pool and the trees. The rest had been recovered by the fury of the desert winds decades ago. A sign to his guards and his trusted warriors went to take positions with the other sentinels in the few constructions which were still visible atop the sands.

Waling at a calm and dignified pace, Lord Tremaron Manwoody approached the gathering at the water's edge. No bonfire was lighting the little group of men. Wood burned left traces, and in case someone talked or an outsider came here it was better not to leave any clues they had been present in the first place.

There was only a single torch lighted, and Tremaron recognised him as Lord Veron Wyl, the very man who had sent him the invitation. On his right was Ser Deziel of the Red Blade, one of the fiercest warriors of the Princedom...and one of the most bloodthirsty too. On his left playing with an empty waterskin was Lucifer Sand, the Bastard of Starfall, nicknamed the Sword of Disgrace when he wasn't close enough to hear and provoke the loudmouth in duel. The rest of the men were of higher standing: Lord Amor Fowler of Skyreach and Lord Azel Uller of the Hellholt.

Small talk was made here and there, but it wasn't before the red-clad Ser Merar Varan and his guards came into view that the real discussion began. No doubt the former Captain of the sellsword company the Bloody Spears had wanted to impress them with his own importance.

"Now we're all here, we can begin." Said Azel Uller, glaring fiercely at the late newcomer.

"Yes, yes, let's begin..."

Varan's tone was dismissive and accompanied with an insulting sign of the hand which made his interlocutor redden under the feeble light. The men tightened their holds around their weapons. Ullers were not known for their sanity, their patience of their ability to receive insults without striking back. But this time was apparently one of the few exceptions to the rule. Exhaling large breaths, the muscled warrior managed to control himself.

"Despite our demands, Prince Qoren has refused to march to war." Declared the angry Lord of Hellholt. "He has refused us the right to shed the blood of our Marcher enemies!"

"Quite right!" Added rapidly Lucifer Sand. "Their fortresses are empty and defenceless! Their castles are ripe for the picking! What is Qoren waiting for?"

"He is a coward, this is what he is!" Veron Wyl spitted on the ground and each participant could feel the viperine-eyed Lord burnt to insult far more his liege. "Hiding behind the walls of Sunspear is the act of a craven, not a true warrior!"

"He denied us glory!"

"He raised the taxes on my citrus plantations!"

"Qoren has refused the hand of my son for his daughter!"

"The loan of five hundred gold suns has never been repaid!"

The Master of Kingsgrave heard his voice join the litany of complaints. It might be petty of him he figured as the litany of grievances they had spoken against Qoren Martell went lengthier after each sentence. But the Prince of Dorne was far away from his seat and the two occasions he had travelled to Sunspear had been distant and formal affairs. Qoren was not a warrior, he was a bookworm!

"We have all reasons to hate Qoren." Resumed Lord Amor Fowler. "The question is how we deal with him."

There was an instant of silence and then-

"I say we ignore him and go to war anyway!" Barked Lord Wyl, with the dangerous look hundreds of men, women and children had learnt to run away from. "Qoren may say he doesn't want war, but let's see how he's singing when tens of thousands flock to our banners in the Boneway and the Prince's Pass!"

"And what if they don't come?" Retorted Ser Deziel. "If we don't have armies behind us, the Marches fortresses will be tough to crack!"

Much as he hated to admit it, Tremaron knew the Red Blade had a point. Nightsong and Blackhaven were fortresses easy to defend for a small number of warriors. They did not defend the totality of the Marches; they were too many goat roads and mountain trails a light group of men could use to launch raids. But if they wanted to take the war to the heart of the Stormlands and the Reach, these citadels had to fall.

"We have our own spears and friends at Sunspear who should be able to...convince Qoren if he proves too difficult." Reminded him Lord Wyl, striking his armour atop the place where non-Wyl kept their hearts. "I can arm five hundred men in a fortnight and storm Blackhaven by myself."

"House Uller can muster seven hundred."

"And House Fowler will bring eight hundred."

"I can assault House Caron with five hundred men" Declared the Lord of Kingsgrave. He could have proposed more; the villages and his holdfast usually gave him in times of war between seven and eight hundred men and several scores could be recruited from the villages and the nomadic clans moving through the western Marches. But taking so many warriors with him when the Prince and many Houses had cravenly refused to go to war with the crumbling Targaryen kingdom was too risky.

The lords had spoken their commitment; four pair of eyes turned to see what the last three men proposed. Unlike their highborn conspirators, they had no castles, no settlements to draw on troops. They had to prove their commitment by other means.

"I was in contact with several banks on the other side of the Narrow Sea." Revealed Ser Deziel. "Not everyone believes the dragonlords have been sufficiently weakened...and there are plenty of extremely angry widows wanting their revenge for the deaths of their sons and their husbands."

Heads nodded here and there; the fleet of the Three Daughters may have sacked Driftmark and several other ports, but their losses had been particularly heavy. Not that it was a surprise, the island was too close from Dragonstone and young dragons could still ravage wooden hulls before falling...

"Contingencies have been put in place for a first payment of roughly two hundred thousands honors." Veron Wyl smiled widely at that; the gold dragons of the Targaryens were worth less and less these days, it was better to be paid with true money and not with monkey coins.

"I have six hundred and four thousand men waiting at the agreed place on the Stepstones." Ser Merar's voice tried to be posed, but it was clear the man had been touched in his pride at the congratulations the Red Blade was receiving for finding the monetary support. "And they're not your rabble of scum and traitors! True men trained in the noble art of the phalanx and the ancient war tactics."

The Uller lord seemed to take this affirmation like a divine sermon but the rest of the conspirators were far from convinced. Every bannersman, sellsword commander and commander of men since the Age of Heroes swore his holy vows that his men would fight until their last breath for the Great Cause. Too often, the troops disbanded as they saw a few horsemen charge them. Given Merar's past in the sellsword companies of the Disputed Lands, Lord Tremaron Manwoody was ready to bet the most intelligent captains had not answered the call.

"And you Lucifer?" Called the former officer of the Bloody Spears. "What sort of forces have you mustered for the war?" Ah, well. Lord Manwoody had almost forgotten how deep the hate between the Bastard of Starfall and the Red Blade was. The key word was 'almost'. "The sword you broke against the Sword of the Morning? The three eunuchs of High Hermitage and their cortege of mules? The ghosts of the desert?"

A sinister smile came to the lips of the bastard child of Lord Dayne.

"Nothing. Your death is my dearest wish."

Before any of the six men had the time to assimilate this astonishing affirmation, it was too late. Lucifer drew the longsword on his back with the agility of a cobra and plunged it in the eye of the disarmed Merar Varan. The corpse of the sellsword stood immobile for a few seconds like it wasn't able to acknowledge its own demise. Red blood tainted the superb red armour. Then the Sand bastard kicked him in the chest and finished to decapitate him. Varan's head rolled in a bloody trail at the edge of the water, followed a moment later by his headless body.

The lords and their associates did not believe their eyes. What in the Seven Hells?

"Traitor!" Roared Ser Deziel, drawing his spear and blocking the attempt of the Sword of Disgrace to murder him the same way Varan had left this world. "Traitor!"

The five highborn drew their weapons and were about to jump to help the Red Blade when the familiar noise of incoming arrows arrived to their ears. Tremaron took cover behind a palm tree, followed by Lord Fowler. Ser Deziel, feinting and striking against the treacherous Sand did not seem to have noticed the arrows. Lord Veron Wyl had used his famous shield to block the projectiles. Only Lord Uller had tried to join the battle...an ill-advised choice as two black arrows were now puncturing his arm and shoulder.

An execution strike from the Disgraced Blade as Deziel was forced to step back was largely enough to kill him. A second warrior fell upon the grass of the oasis.

 _Where are our guards? How is it possible we haven't been warned of incoming enemies_?

These were the questions the Master of Kingsgrave was asking himself. Of course to continue asking them, he had to survive. The rare torches which had been lightened all over the oasis were now extinguished or swiftly losing their lights on the cold sands, but one was still providing fire allowing to see a shadow rush at him. Shouting a loud battle-cry, Tremaron ran and stabbed his opponent in one great sweep of his bastard sword. His instincts suddenly screamed 'danger!' and he was forced to use a parade to block a dagger thrown from the shadows. Two new enemies came into view and all his swordsmanship talent was soon needed to stay alive.

From the edge of his meagre vision – the night was more and more oppressing as he saw scores of enemies coming at him – the Lord of Kingsgrave watched powerlessly Ser Deziel be disarmed by the simplest expedient of having his hand removed. The Red Blade had lost his last duel, being immediately cut down by the Bastard of Starfall.

"Come and meet your death, bastard!" Screamed Tremaron. "Come and fight me traitor!"

It was really the only way he was going to fight Lucifer Sand by now. Lord Fowler was sleeping forever on the sand, his empty eyes fixing the dark sky. The light area was now encircled with spearmen pointing expertly their weapons at him. It was the end.

"You have no right to speak of treason, Tremaron Manwoody."

A thin silhouette on horseback came out of the obscurity, with a voice he had heard three times before today. It was almost drowned in the noise the attackers made but Tremaron Manwoody recognised it nonetheless.

"My Prince..."

Qoren Martell pushed back slightly his hood, revealing grey hairs and a forehead resenting the weight of the years...but his eyes shone with anger and his mouth was not the benevolent one they had mocked previously.

"Four of my lords and two of my knights meeting the same night in a far-away oasis. Did you really think I wouldn't find out?"

The Dornish lord kept his mouth wisely shut. As it was, he had really been convinced that whenever Qoren Martell heard of this conspiracy, it wouldn't do him any good. Evidently he had been completely wrong. And how he regretted it now.

"When I was speaking about scorpions, I hadn't in mind my bannersmen to play that role!" The Prince of Dorne watched with loath and angst the corpses of the aborted conspiracy. In the end, the Lord of Sunspear turned around and disappeared once more in the night. Only his tired voice echoed, far, far away.

"Bring me his head..."

"Any last words? Traitor?" Lucifer Sand looked like he was experiencing the funniest moment of his entire life. His sword, the infamous _Perfidy_ , was covered in the blood of Deziel and Merar.

"Tell to my wife I love her."

He never saw the spear which impaled him in the back.

* * *

 **Lord Sargon Orkwood**

One by one the longships limped back in the small bay sheltered from the violent winds and the rain. One by one the sails were lowered and the agitation aboard the crews diminished. Not for all though. There were hulls which had too suffered from the last battles and now only continuous scooping was preventing them from joining the Drowned God in the cold embrace of the abyss.

The Master of House Orkwood fixed these battered hulls with despair, counting and re-counting them, hoping somehow it would change the flotilla in front of his eyes back in the powerful fleet it had belonged.

It didn't. A score and a half of longships was all he had with him and not all were answering to him.

Awful if one knew the Lord Captain had given him three times that number a fortnight ago when the campaign to make these Reach bastards submit started. Sargon had been one of the most trusted captains of the greatest reaver of this age. He had been an axe shattering the greenlander fleets, coming ashore to plunder and make them realise why it was the Ironborn who would soon dominate Westeros.

Until three days ago. Until the moment the Red Kraken died on Southshield and everything which by the cursed tempests of the Storm God could be disastrous had come to pass. Until their destiny had trapped them between the damaged shield of their own islanders and the vengeful hammer of the Redwyne Navy.

 _And now I have lost my pride, the best part of my squadron and hundreds of my reavers_.

The cold gusts of winds and the mocking bird shrills he heard were like further humiliations against his reputation. Never had he drunk to the poisoned cup of defeat in his life. Never.

The worst part was being unaware of the full extent of his losses. But knowing the bloody defeat they had just been handed, Lord Sargon Orkwood was unfortunately sure they were going to be terrible. While it was easy to blame it on the confusion following the death of King Dalton, he was forced to bitterly admit the successful storming of Oakenshield before this defeat had been a bloodbath – and not one in the Ironborn's favour. Close to six hundred men had been rendered to the Drowned God after Lord Hewett received an axe in his skull for having the temerity to resist his true masters...but for what? All the smallfolk and the Lord's family had long ago taken refuge to Highgarden. There had been no gold, no jewels and most of the fine clothes had been burnt by the Reachers to make incendiary projectiles –or to warm themselves during the cold nights, Sargon wasn't sure on that point.

As dreadful as these losses had been, the reavers lost in the failed assaults against Southshield had been far, far more numerous than the Oakenshield casualties. Before the King died, several fine captains and good sailors were shredded by the arrows or burnt by boiling tar. After the Red Kraken was admitted to the Halls of the Drowned God, this already big number had quadrupled at a frightening speed.

The Redwyne navy had had all the advantages: the Ironborn were leaderless and had the wind against them, the longships crews had been terribly hammered by these sieges and the endless raids all over the Sunset Coast, the men who were jumping aboard were in most cases not aboard their own ship and the hulls had never been conceived to fight big war-galleys head-on. No, as galling as the thought was, fleeing was their best bet. Tired and unmotivated as they were, they stood no chance against ships bristling with scorpions and murderous siege engines.

Unfortunately, many captains had not realised that. Or maybe they had and they didn't want to survive their beloved King.

 _Or the Drowned Priests ordered them to fight to the last. There weren't any of these zealots aboard the ships accompanying me but I'm not sure where they went when the King fell_.

Those Ironborn who had tried their chance in the naval battle had been crushed mercilessly. But in their death they had allowed a good part of the Iron fleet to escape the steel thorns of the trap. At least Sargon hoped so. With the senior captains unable to coordinate the slightest formation, the longships had been dispersed and each captain reacted like a lone prey pursued by a kraken: save your skin first and then ask about your brethren when you're in security.

The loud steps of his cadet Torgon came to his ears and he ceased the contemplation of the battered ship he had to take back home.

"Brother, there is a problem."

"Only one?" Chuckled the Lord of Orkmont, before taking a more concerned face as he noticed the grave expression of his young brother. Aside from being an Orkwood, Torgon was also the second of the Sea Ravager and Sargon had trained him not to run back at a minor problem.

"It's Wex." Murmured Torgon. "It looks like he's ill but he's whispering things...the men don't know what to do with him."

"This old mule has tried to hide a wound, I bet." Wex was the oldest sailor serving aboard by a fair margin and the Drowned God only knew how he had lived so long because it wasn't the aged reaver knew to care about his own health. The Captain of the _Sea Ravager_ sighed. "What good is it to have a healer on our ship if nobody goes to him?"

Walking down the wooden stairs, Sargon moved in long strides towards the longship's prow where a third of the crew had gathered in a small mob.

"Let him breath, sea rascals!" Growled the Captain, delivering slaps and walking over the feet of those who didn't get out of his path quickly enough. When he had his first glance at the old sailor, he could not avoid a gasp. Wex had been old, somewhere around five and sixty name days, with a respectable grey beard and almost silver-like hairs. One thing he had not however, was the skin of a fresh corpse and terrible wrinkles disfiguring his visage. It was like he had aged of several decades since the moment Sargon had last seen him – and that was the day before.

"Wex? Do you hear me? Wex?"

One of the closest sailors chose to cut the ugly green-blue tunic to let him breath...unleashing gasps and exclamations of horrors when a dark bleeding wound was revealed.

"Red was the shroud of the Kraken, black will be his tomb." Croaked the old sailor. This was not his habitual voice; in fact it looked like an animal was trying to use a human mouth.

"Rex, come on you aren't a Drowned Priest!" Shouted a reaver who thankfully for him retained his anonymity in the crowd.

"Blue wings, blue wings and the Kraken dies..."

The veins around the wound seemed to darken with every wound.

"What has the old idiot done?" Grumbled the single healer of the ship as he advanced to reach Sargon's position before swearing when he saw the crewman. "Oh by the bloody mist..."

"Under Nagga's bones the shadow of winter falls..."

The eyes of Wex were growing sombre. Yet Sargon remembered the man had had blue eyes, not this colour of black.

"By the putrid breath of the Storm god!" Swore someone when more black blood began to drip from the large gash.

"The kingsmoot..." Rasped the agonising Ironborn. "Beware...the...kingsmoot..."

His eyes closed and his breath fell in quick burst before ceasing completely. Wex was dead.

"What was he saying Captain?" Asked Maron, the _Sea Ravager_ 's quartermaster. "All this talk of kraken, wings and kingsmoot...was it a-?"

"It was nothing!" Interrupted him Sargon, maintaining an iron facade even as he himself wasn't sure what to believe. But if he began to doubt in front of his crew and say that the old reaver had given them a prophecy, he would lose control of his crew and the other ships in short order.

By the very nature of their risky profession, sailors no matter the sea they navigated were superstitious. Ironborn weren't escaping this rule, and the circumstances of Wex's death could only be considered as a bad omen.

The less said about the black blood covering half of the dead man's chest, the better.

"My lord, these weren't just the ramblings of a dying man!"

"And what exactly makes you believe that, Balon?"

The Pyke bastard had been one of the many Ironborn 'orphans' his ship had taken with them in the desperate boarding of Southshield. For a Pyke, Balon wasn't that bad...though Sargon felt sure to keep an eye – and one of his men – on him. One never knew what sort of ambitions the youngster might have if left to his own oars.

The rebuke at least succeeded in shutting his mouth and convincing the other superstitious on board not to scream everywhere doom was upon them. Good, because the Ironborn lord had no idea what sort of force was in the vicinity and they kind of needed fresh water for their return to the Iron Islands.

"Go back to your duties."

Ironborn being Ironborn, his crew obeyed grudgingly and bitching the whole way about their captain being either a tyrant or an unbeliever. Or both.

"What are we going to do, brother?" Asked Torgon as four crewmen took Wex's body and brought him away for the funerary preparations.

"We will sail for the Iron Islands as soon as we're ready and Wex has been properly honoured." Sargon Orkwood' voice should have been joyful at the idea of returning home but it was not. They had screamed so high that their conquest of the western coast was ineluctable that he feared the welcome they were going to receive. A King dead, a fleet splintered and no loot to show for it: there were revolts which had started for far less. But he could not say this out loud where any superstitious and fearful sailor could hear him and thus bombastically added one little encouragement.

"Woe to anyone who dares standing against us."

* * *

 **Queen Baela Targaryen**

The young Targaryen Queen felt a new wave of despair as she looked on the new piece of parchment she had read. If the messenger could be trusted – and she had no reason to think the Blackwood castellan was a liar - a splendid mill, built six years ago west of Harrenhal had been torched in a bloody skirmish with bandits. So had been the village, its one hundred souls massacred and their corpses left to rot on the fields. Aemond the Kinslayer had bypassed this unimportant settlement in his fire madness, but evidently it had not saved the smallfolk.

Sighing, Baela Targaryen took aside the parchment and placed it on the left of her desk, joining a growing pile of messages half her height. All were announcing bad news or ill-tidings of some sort. Dwells poisoned, smallfolk murdered, their heads decapitated and brought on spikes. Knight forts ruined, granaries vandalised or looted, highborn women raped and entire families annihilated. All sorts of death and madness a good Queen was supposed to prevent or stop by the force of arms when it got too far.

Atrocities she had done nothing to stop.

 _What a Queen I am. I control nothing and I rule over razed villages, starving smallfolk and funeral pyres_.

Her eyes turned to the sole window of the modest quarters she had been given inside Maidenpool's dungeon. Despite it being close to the day's zenith, the visibility was poor as large snowfalls poured their white content over the Riverlands plains, forests and hills.

At the other end of her link, she felt the amusement of her bonded. Moondancer loved the snow, though her young dragon was tiring rapidly in the cold conditions. The Northerners welcomed it with the usual celebrations of men having endured blizzards half of their lives. The Riverlords and Valemen were far less enthusiastic, some knights and men-at-arms considering it an unnatural thing. Things had not gone better when many had been forced to dismount and help their horses pass the snowdrifts.

Sighing again, Baela returned to the unread pile of parchments, reports and messages she hadn't read and yet somehow should have to be before the end of the day. Queen was supposed to be fun, but in this year of war and winter, there was only the endless and boring duty of paperwork.

If only there was one good new in the middle of this! By the love of her twin sister, she couldn't remember any message in the last moons having brought a smile to her lips. The Black offensive in the Reach had been stalemated with crippling losses on both sides. The Ironborn had suffered a heavy defeat on the Shield Islands after their fool of a lord proclaimed himself Iron King. No, there surely had been no good news of any sort waiting for her at Maidenpool when she and the army had finally ended their withdrawal after Bosworth Bridge.

 _Or rather 'the Bloody Bridge', that's how the soldiers are calling it now_.

Honestly she wasn't sure anyone had won anything on this rainy and stormy day. Except maybe the crows?

A grimace came to her face. The Battle, no matter its name, had been a slaughter able to disgust even the most bloodthirsty fanatic of the necessity of conflict.

The Black Army mustered at Bosworth Bridge had been four and twenty thousand strong. Once the carnage of the day was counted along with the desertions, the diseases and the men crippled for the rest of their short lives, barely eleven thousand able men had withdrawn to Maidenpool.

Size for size, Baela was well-aware the losses suffered were far less horrible than the ones the Greens have suffered – Lord Bolton's estimates were of at least twenty-six thousand Green casualties. Riding Moondancer, she had seen the river in fury hauling so many corpses that for a moment one could be mistaken water was not the main substance transported to the swamps. But 'less horrible' was a cold consolation when the enemy had lost close to an entire army.

 _Thanks to the idiocy of Lord Baratheon, we destroyed their horse. If only I had been able to kill Daeron and Tessarion_...

But she hadn't been able to. Her kingly cousin was more intelligent than his two eldest brothers – not that it was very difficult – and her deeds at Dragonstone had deprived her of any surprise effect. Moreover, shooting accurately with arrows in the middle of a storm the eye of a dragon would have been downright impossible.

She placed a new message in front of her. This one was coming from Old Anchor; the supplies coming from Pentos were several days late. The author was placing this delay on bad weather, but reading between the lines it was easy to read that the Essossi were becoming more and more reluctant to supply them as the Black gold coffers emptied themselves.

 _I suppose it wouldn't be very diplomatic to say it's the Braavosi's fault...half of the Royal Treasury is in their vaults, no_?

One more message for the events she couldn't control, then. At least this time it wasn't one of the Arryn bannersmen sending a raven to complain about the losses or protesting their loyalty.

The last battle had been, all things considered, a complete disaster for the Vale. Of course they had scarcely been alone in that regard but among the Black forces, they had stood in a particularly unimpressive way.

Lord Lynderly and Lord Corbray were dead, like many of their cousins and relatives. If most of the latter had had enough honour or sense to die on the battlefield, the two lords had been executed as traitors by her hand wielding Lady Forlorn. House Corbray was now extinct, explaining the presence of the Valyrian sword on her right side.

 _I would say I wished the two of them no ill will...but they tried to betray me and the entire army, the Seven damn them! And they forced me to execute them myself_!

The majority of her surviving army were following the old custom that a man or a woman who passed the sentence had to be the executioner. It was...unsettling. Bloody. Barbaric. But in the fairness of her mind, Baela recognised she wouldn't have had the courage to remove the head of a man if she hadn't been absolutely persuaded of his guilt.

Ser Jon Hersy was dead. According to the rumours, he had been killed trying to claim the head of Borros Baratheon for himself and instead was slain by a Swann knight. Lord Elesham was dead too, his troops had been so sure of their victory they had been the first in pursuit...and the first to fall against the Volantene sellswords. Lord Pryor had been unconscious since that day, and the Gods only knew if he would wake up from the inhuman blow he had received to his head. Lord Allard Donniger was missing. A few lowborn soldiers thought they had seen him drown in the river but there had been no confirmation from any trusted spy.

In fact, the single important Vale lord to have survived the butchery with his wits and titles intact was Lord Eon Tollett. The Dark Omen had emerged from the clash of steel without a scar, and this while being engaged in fierce fighting for the better part of the day.

 _His prophecies of doom weren't very accurate_ , the young sovereign thought with amusement. An emotion which rapidly faded when she remembered all the dead men. The ones who had not left Bosworth Bridge with her.

Two of her Kingsguards were gone: Ser Harrold Darke had been murdered in the final moments of the withdrawal and Ser Jared Paege had received a Marcher arrow through the eye. Lord Whitehill had been beaten to death by enraged Stormlanders when he had tried to beg for mercy. Lord Overton had been trampled by a horse. Lord Reed had been torn apart by hundreds of enemies, fighting alone and dismounted. Lord Karstark had bled to death inside his armour, never having the time to mend his wounds before returning to the frontline. Lord Ryger, Lord Keath, Lord Lychester and Lord Mallister had perished on the field of battle. Lord Darry had lost an arm and deep wounds to his legs; the maesters were uncertain if he was going to pass the next seven days.

Lord Kermit Tully, Lord Paramount of the Riverlands, was prisoner of the Greens. Undoubtedly the biggest loss of the River forces, as their unity was breaking and they were passing their days bickering and quarrelling.

 _No wonder Harren the Black wanted to die when the Conqueror came_ , the Kingslayer dragonrider wondered inside her head. _He couldn't handle all their plots and complaints_.

Baela herself had been tempted more than once to abandon them. Unfortunately, the oaths she had sworn them upon her coronation were binding her to them. That she often thought they behaved like children was not important.

It was that moment knocked at the door.

"Lord Cleyan Moss is requesting an audience, your Grace!" Announced the voice of Lord Commander Adrian Redfort.

"Let him enter." The silver-haired young woman said quietly, dearly hoping the Northerner noble had not more parchments and books for her to study.

The heavy door of dark wood opened, revealing first the commander of her white knights then the dark-haired man next to him.

"Your Grace." Said the vassal of House Dustin, bowing largely. In a swift gesture, Baela ordered him wordlessly to stand anew, restraining herself not to show her irritation. For all her years living at Dragonstone, she had never realised how much bows, salutes and formal customs the court had taken for granted. On the volcanic island, there had been plenty of Royal Blood present and everyone knew everyone. Here at Maidenpool, the knights and the Masterly Houses passed their time to bow, bow and re-bow. There was not a protocol to shine the shoes of someone...but the bootlickers weren't far from it. How many turns of hourglasses were lost each day respecting all the niceties of customs and court must be staggering. "You look resplendent today."

"I suppose you haven't walked all these corridors to flatter me?"

Compliments and dulcet words were all well and good, but the young Black sovereign was beginning to develop a lassitude towards them. Hearing once your purple eyes are a treasure thousands of souls could lose themselves into is fine; hearing it a hundred times per day provokes a huge headache.

"No, your Grace. Lord Stark has asked me to convey unexpected news. Yesterday, three Green knights carrying a peace banner rode to the camp of Lady Blackwood. They proclaim being sent on the order of the Green King...they told Lady Alysanne they wanted to establish a truce."

"Daeron want a truce?"

There was some incredulity in her voice, but she doubted anyone could blame her for that. For the first assassinations and massacres, the war the Blacks and the Greens had been marked by a total absence of honour. Oaths had been violated so many times that many of the soldiers were killing their enemies the moment they tried to lay down their weapons.

Baela and the Northern lords had had the worst difficulties following Bosworth Bridge to convince the River lords and the Crown lords not to butcher their highborn prisoners. Over twenty highborn were thus enjoying the hospitality of Maidenpool's cells...but she was fairly sure three or four times that number had been killed before they were released in her custody.

 _Which is really funny when one thinks about it. I lost the battle, but I have a lot of prisoners. If Daeron had not captured Lord Tully, he wouldn't have anything to negotiate the return of his lords_.

"A truce and an exchange of prisoners." Confirmed Lord Moss before adding another piece of information. "The Green emissaries hinted their monarch wouldn't be averse to the idea of negotiations."

The young Queen readjusted slightly the gold tiara she carried on her head, looking at the pale-skinned man in front of her. A lord respectful, helping her to handle the monumental duties of ruling the realm and knowing the limitations of ambition and greed. If only all the Northerners were like this...for all the rumours and calumnious remarks on the Northerners, Lord Stark and his bannersmen weren't exactly shy to form their own power bases in the South.

 _We let the wolves enter sheepfold and winter is here_.

"Well, if he's willing to negotiate..." Affirmed sarcastically Baela Targaryen. The last 'negotiations' between Queen Rhaenyra and her half-brother after the death of Viserys II had been so poorly-handled they were forced to live with the disastrous consequences years after. "I should better hear what he wants, no?"

 _And perhaps one of us will have an idea how to survive until spring_.


	10. The negotiations will be short

**Chapter 10**

 **The negotiations will be short**

 **Archmaester Sater**

"The dragons are still alive. Our plan to establish a glorious era of science and order has failed."

The words had been uttered in a hateful whisper behind an unmoving platinum mask. The darkness of the library they were currently meeting in made them even more cruel and distorted.

"I don't think so." Replied a figure indentified by a silver mask, rod and ring. "The greatest reptiles of these inbred idiots have been killed and only three or four remains. We can still kill them all."

The rest of the twelve men assisting to this conversation did not intervene in the debate between their two colleagues. No event of importance had come since the last time they had gathered in secrecy. Speaking now would only lengthen a debate noted for its incredible sterility.

"Enough." Coughed Archmaester Valer in a feeble voice. The Master of raven studies and Seneschal of the Citadel for the current year sounded incredibly tired. As it should be when one was responsible to rule over a realm of highly eccentric researchers, grumpy teachers, quarrelsome Archmaesters and distracted students while war raged outside. "The dragons...are a problem...which will wait...the reports of the next moon."

Archmaesters Cley and Tyrar bowed in acceptance, but the very unfriendly look they sent each other told Sater the disagreement they had just expressed was not going to vanish in the air.

"In this case, I suppose we can speak about the real problems." Sater knew he should speak in a calm and reasoned tone, but he was unable to hide the bitterness in his tone. "Luthor Flowers is mustering an army of cutthroats in the taverns and southern quarters. While I would be delighted if he decided to join the Green decimated forces at Cider Hall, I'm afraid he has far more disloyal ideas in mind."

A chuckle came from the lips of the elderly Archmaester Gulian and his brass mask.

"Sater, don't be ridiculous. The children of Oldtown will never tolerate a bastard ruling them."

"And who will they accept, Gulian? Who?" Demanded Sater, slamming his yellow god rod on the ground of the Library of Superior Studies. "Lord Otto is dead. His sons Lynor, Jonor, Gunthor and Gwayne have perished on the battlefield or by daggers in the back. Queen Alicent is at King's Landing and her health is terribly fragile. The best claim is now held by King Daeron himself and I don't think Oldtown is at the forefront of his thoughts these days!

"There are cousins...Ormund had many sons and some are with the Green army. We can recall them and organise a marriage with one of the secondary but rich descendants of the merchant lines..."

"I think your Citadel is far less secure than you think." Hissed Archmaester Turen, sinister Archmaester in the little-understood domain of the occult.

"What is this supposed to mean?" Retorted testily Gulian.

"Otto and his descendants have never been more unpopular in the streets and the whorehouses." It was hard to guess if behind the Valyrian steel mask Turen was happy or angry with this outcome. "A quarter of the city is starving since the lands around the Honeywine are abandoned and the bandits are preying all over the roads. The smallfolk won't care if the new Lord isn't a Hightower if he gives them peace and bread. They want to eat and they don't care about a man who killed their children in the greatest war since the Conquest."

"We should have killed the dragons earlier!" Barked Archmaester Tyrar. "It's their fault if the realm is starving!"

None of the thirteen other Archmaesters replied but Sater heard many sigh as discreetly as possible. The sentence which had just been pronounced was somewhat true...in the case one completely forgot how many incentives the Citadel had given the Greens to oppose the Blacks. It had been their agents who had stolen certain evidence from Prince Daemon and Princess Rhaenyra before the demise of the old King Viserys. It had been their ravens who had selectively informed the Great Lords of the realm when certain events unfolded in order to weaken the Blacks. Aegon II may have been the King sitting on the Iron Throne until his last showdown over Dragonstone, but the maesters had pushed the Greens to rise against the Blacks long before he rose against his half-sister.

A new series of coughs came out the mouth of the Seneschal. A finely crafted crystal glass came to his lips as the old Archmaester slightly pushed up his mask, revealing a pale face which would not last long in this world. Not with all the white ravens and the growing cold descending in every kingdom of Westeros. When he spoke, his voice was laced with pain.

"How stand...our finances?"

"Badly." He stated. "Except the closest towns near Oldtown, no one is volunteering anymore for training at the Citadel and I suspect things are going to get worse as winter comes. The Noble Houses' contributions have been curtailed by eight-tenths, an unfortunate result of the war and many Lords blaming the Hightowers for the civil war. Our food reserves and the gold we keep in our vaults are adequate but if the snow last years we will be forced to ration ourselves."

A shiver crossed the grey robes of the unofficial Conclave. Every of the fourteen Westerosi was at least five and forty name days old; rationing at their age was something to avoid at all costs.

"But surely...we will...recover our influence...over the Seven Kingdoms...in the next decades?"

"I am astoundingly surprised by your words, Seneschal." Hissed Turen. If the eyes of the Archmaester would have been bows ready to strike, the senior member of the Order would have been a dead maester. "By these words you assume there will be a Kingdom left when this war is over. Have you listened to the reports? Have you paid attention to the hordes of fleeing smallfolk and deserters erring between the Neck and Dorne?"

"Go back to your discussions with your warlock friends, Turen." Archmaester Cley posture could be best described as 'vexed and sulking'. "The rest of us are dealing with important-"

Whatever insults and impolite remarks the Archmaester had been about to say, he didn't continue. The man behind the platinum mask tried to turn but his legs trembled uncontrollably and he fell on the green carpet.

A large dagger was planted in his back.

For an instant, the Archmaesters fixed the place where their colleague lied dead. Many of them had seen dead men in their lives, whether due to their studies in healing, tragedies having marked their travels before they forged their chains or more nebulous circumstances.

But no Archmaester had ever been killed in the middle of a Citadel library like this!

"Run you fools!" Hissed Turen before taking his own advice and rushing towards the nearest exit. Well, the only exit to say the truth.

"Hold on!" Shouted Archmaester Dorur as Sater lighted off several candles to favour their escape. These were his last words as the assassin had just been granted a perfect target. The room was in the penumbra but he saw enough to watch a second dagger be thrown in the throat of his colleague. Dorur fell like a sack of potatoes.

Sater cursed under his breath and ran, abandoning his rod on a table of midnight-black wood. Under his grey robes the only object which could be considered a weapon was the silver paper knife he used to unseal his letters and the secretive financial negotiations his contacts passed him. Against a trained assassin, he might as well use his hands. Plunging behind a large bookshelf on his right, the Riverlander-born maester seized a middle-sized book and held it in front of him. Just in time to oppose the next dagger of the murderer.

"You missed..."

From his right something slammed in him. Sater screamed in pain and tried to put the maximum of distance between him and his present location. A glance at his injured arm informed him a powerful arrow had more or less shredded his member. There was plenty of blood and his healing knowledge informed him that unless he found healing help in a few turn of hourglasses, he would join the dead in the coldness of the grave.

Sater ran, changing of library shelf without a sequence. He didn't know how many assassins they were. He didn't know how they had infiltrated the heart of the Citadel. In the distance, he heard the Seneschal and to his shame felt a moment of relief as it meant one of the killers was not occupied to track him.

"Valar Morghulis." Someone whispered.

Archmaester Sater felt something very cold against his throat before the world exploded in pain and darkness.

* * *

 **Lord Larys Strong**

From the top of the Red Keep's dungeon one could almost believe the chief city of King's Landing was calm, prosperous and beautiful. The snowfalls of the last days had powdered the roofs, the towers, the septs statues and the ramparts in white. The Blackwater Bay had taken a very dark blue colour which should give great success to any artist managing to put it in his paintings. Several ships from the other side of the Narrow Sea were disembarking their goods with great pulleys and animal-driven machinery. From the South and the Rose Road came scores of chariots, their progression looking like a great snake from where he stood.

Yes, seen from there King's Landing looked at peace. Almost. As long as the gaze did not turn to the carcass of the Dragonpit. If the common observer did not notice the hundreds of large holes in the city where houses had once stood. Paved streets were missing uncountable stones where the rioters had used those to bash the heads of their enemies. Warehouses and inns looked grotesque where the dragonfire had touched them. Truly the capital was a wounded creature. And it fell to Larys and others the impossible task that the city didn't succumb from those injuries.

"How many dead the last day?"

"We found six and two scores." Replied Bofon Follard. With his gold cloak in tatters and his mail having seen better fortnights, the brown-haired knight of thirty name days wasn't presenting the appearance one expected from the Commander of the City's Watch. Yet this was his role, a fact which may have something to do with him being one of the rare officers having had the courage to accept the insanely dangerous post.

Five Commanders under the Green and Blacks' rule had perished in the last four years and the number of soldiers having perished under them was in the high thousands. With some hope Follard would bring back some stability and honour to the Goldcloaks. Prince Daemon had largely contributed to tear apart the institution he had himself created but it didn't mean it had to stay that way. Tens of thousands desperate people lived in King's Landing and for the sake of the realm the law had to be enforced. Even if it turned him the stomach when he saw the countless beatings and killings. Even if each day brought scores of deaths...and he was sadly sure many more were thrown at the bottom of the Bay with stones chained to their feet that he was unaware of.

"The riots are weakening. Good."

"The supplies of food the Stormlords domains provide us are doing the lion's part." Cautiously warned the second son of Lord Follard who might well be the new Master of Folly's Fortune once the butcher bill of Bosworth Bridge was confirmed. It was a good point, Larys had to admit. His agents in the depts. Of Flea Bottom reported that the soup shelters and the orphanages the Queen had organised in her name had become immensely popular. "The Kingslanders still hate House Targaryen and their dragons. The crowds of Fleabottom, Cobbler's Square and the River Rows don't make the difference between a dragon and another. And..."

"And Grandison didn't give them any reasons to love us, right?"

The curt nod of the Crownlander was all the confirmation the Master of Whisperers waited for. Not that it was a surprise. This sole morning he had already ordered three deaths of Riverlander merchants having somehow survived in the tunnels under city and conspiring to open the gates should any Black army march again on the capital. To his knowledge, they had already killed over eight Goldcloaks and the Seven knew how many more had been paid to close their eyes. Two Guild Masters had been arrested for treason and an attempt to poison the supplies coming from Grandview traders.

Of course if he announced Grandison was dead, there would be a lot of celebrations and maybe a slight calm before the next riot or insurrection attempt. But then he would have to explain exactly how the unlamented sire had died and this would not do at all.

For understandable reasons, the Battle of Bosworth Bridge –since it was the name his King had apparently decided for the incredible slaughter – had not been revealed to the population of King's Landing for the time being. Explaining to an entire city ready to explode again at the first opportunity that the Green greatest army didn't exist anymore and that their best defence stood with a dragon and a company of Essossi sellswords was something he hoped to delay as long as humanly possible. By the intelligence a few of the fanatics had showed in the past, a lunatic might well consider charging a dragon with a lance straight-on.

"How fare the Barracks?"

"We will have finished fortifying the Eastern one in two days."

"And the three others?"

"Those will need more work. A fortnight and a half for the Northern one, it's the most advanced. The Southern one will require a lot of work. Two moons?"

The legitimate Lord of Harrenhal nodded grimly. Between the riots and the carnage Rhaenyra Targaryen had brought on the rebellious Kingslanders, none of the fanatics who had led the frenzied crowds had been willing to show mercy to the Goldcloaks. The Eastern barrack had held until order was finally restored by the Reach and Storm swords. The Northern, Southern and Western had been swarmed by the furious mass of bodies and in the case of the Southern one, been torched with its last defenders still alive inside. Massive repairs had been needed for the least ravages places to serve as defensible barracks again. For the rooms and the bastions having burnt, it had been necessary to raze and rebuild from scratch.

"Do your best, Commander."

Bofon Follard didn't ask if there were reinforcements for the City Watch and Larys didn't answer. With Lord Baratheon dead and most of the army destroyed, there was no way the City Watch would gain veterans guardsmen for the foreseeable future.

"We will. But I need two more executioners to deal with the scum we captured in the last violence bouts.

"You will have them." Said Larys and he was sincere. The position of King's Justice – or executioner if one wanted to call a cat by its true name – did not have high requirements. You had to know how to sign your name, have an intimidating appearance and appreciate the sight of blood. These days, the men having these 'qualities' were not in abeyance. "Are they other issues?"

"Not that I am aware but the day is still young."

"Let's hope then the Seven will give us a calm day." The chuckle coming from Follard's lips showed how likely this was. Not that Larys blamed him. He hadn't had a tranquil day since...ah he didn't remember. Maybe before this damned war had begun?

The descent down the dungeon's stairs after this was a tiresome affair and the Master of Whisperers reflected he should really find a location easier of access to hold conversations safe from curious and inimical parties. Alas, he hadn't found one without giving the members of the Council the knowledge to navigate the underground maze under King's Landing.

The Clubfoot didn't trust them to that point. To be fair, he didn't trust anyone except the King these days and the affection he had for his kingly master was still prudent and limited. Larys had thought the rider of Tessarion was able to control somewhat Lord Borros. Evidently he had been mistaken. Thousands of men from the Reach and the Stormlands their cause couldn't afford to lose were lying dead in the fields. There was no time to recruit more troops and train them. Winter was here and none of their warriors was used to campaign under this weather. For better and surely for worse, they were going to negotiate with the Blacks. After so many deaths and destruction, negotiate...at least Rhaenyra and Daemon were both dead.

Ruminations on the outcome of the war aside, Larys was forced to move aside rapidly in the stairs when a particularly big servant made the ascension and missed the collision only by sheer dumb luck. Larys was one of the highest-ranked Councillors present inside the walls of the capital and he expected the excuses to come with prompt celerity...only to see the insolent youngster disappear upstairs.

Grumbling about how politeness and traditions were falling by the wayside, Larys resumed his walk only to freeze two marches down when he realised the left pocket of his modified tunic was open and a piece of paper which definitely hadn't been here a turn of hourglass before was seized by his fingers.

On it were only four words. There was no introduction, no name, nothing to indicate who had written them and who they were destined. Just a convened code to inform him a contract had been completed.

 _The Ravens have fallen_.

Despite the turn taken by the events, Larys Strong smiled widely as he swallowed the parchment and went in the direction of the Throne Room. One problem down...a hundred to go.

* * *

 **Lady Johanna Lannister**

Casterly Rock was one of the few castles in the Seven Kingdoms which could boast to have every type of facility inside its walls. Tunnels, dungeons, barracks, stables, gardens and courtyards had been carved from the rock itself decades, centuries and sometimes millennia ago. There were seven septs, the smallest being the size of a well-proportioned mansion and the biggest easily being counted in the ten greatest of Westeros. There was a well-supplied menagerie where once lions had been kept for amusement but now only less dangerous pets were caged. A prison existed in the entrails of the Rock, one so deep the rumours affirmed those who were imprisoned there would never see the light of the day again. As the mountain taking the name of Casterly Rock was three times the size of the Hightower in Oldtown, the Casterlys and their Lannister successors had had a lot of place to play with and the result was a citadel being a maze of rooms and tunnels which required an army of servants and builders to maintain in good order.

But this was not what smallfolk and highborn thought about when one spoke about Casterly Rock. No, the first subjects to be told in a conversation were the inexhaustible gold mines, the vaults filled with gold ingots, coins and priceless gold creations. The gigantic Golden Gallery contained the greatest treasures of the Lannisters, enough heirlooms, gilded ornaments, gold structures, jade vases, silver and gold crowns to buy every Essossi Free City twice over. The Hall of Heroes was a succession of golden-marble creations for every Lord, Prince and King of the Rock.

The Hall of Thunder was a lesser hall place compared to the former, but it was still somewhat famous –or infamous if the person was not a member of House Lannister. Firstly, it had been built by King Tybolt 'the Thunderbolt' Lannister after he defeated three Andal warlords and made sure their entire forces were slaughtered in the pass of the Golden Tooth. Secondly, three golden columns on each side contained a large part of the gold which had been gained in blood from the invaders. The rest had been added to the great golden throne Johanna was currently seated on. Thirdly, it was extremely spacious, the Lords and Ladies of the Rock being able to host over five or six thousands guests together while leaving enough space for the servants to deliver the meals and the decoration to remain undamaged by drunken men of high rank.

What made the Hall built by Tybolt feared by observers however, was the issue a Lannister only seated on this throne before a bloody order was going to be given. Several times in history it had happened to the point it had almost become a tradition. Andals, First Men, Valyrians and Essossi, the culture didn't matter. When the head ruling the Lannisters was about to organise the slaughter of their enemies, they came here to pass the sentence. Though usually there was a large audience to hear the sentence.

"The Ironborn must die."

Three scores of men applauded the statement of their Lady Paramount. About a third had grey hairs and beards, their bodies covered in scars and the ravages of time. Those who didn't belong to this category were young, with several not yet requiring razor blades to shave their yellow-golden beards.

"The Ironborn will die." Promised Edric Lowther. Ship captain in the Redwyne Fleet, it was him who had come to Casterly Rock bring the news of the Red Kraken's death three days before. "My lord is mustering every men we can spare from Oldtown and the Arbor for the invasion of the Iron Islands. You will have to take my word on it, but there were discussions of several senior captains when I departed northwards to hire several companies of sellswords to...make sure the Ironborn will not threaten our coasts."

A few of the children and the grey beards made noises of approval, but to Johanna's ears, these murmurs only betrayed how silent the Rock was. The men she had left were forced to constantly man the watchtowers and the forts, only certain manner to give an early warning should an Ironborn raid be launched. The West had lost an entire generation of men and the rest were trying desperately to stop the tides of murderers, pirates and rapists Dalton Greyjoy had unleashed on the lands of her deceased husband. Her lands now, since her only son Damon was too young to rule and the fool hadn't judged good to write his will before going to war. His twin Tyland could have been the next Lord Paramount of the Westerlands, but gelded and at King's Landing his days at the top were over. The description of his injuries told her he wasn't likely to pass the winter anyway.

"Excellent. The squids must pay for all the destruction they have caused." Johanna was born a Westerling, not a Lannister, but her eyes were conveying enough of her fury for her bannersmen to make a step back. "Thousands of our men, women and children have been kidnapped by these beasts and are doubtlessly suffering uncountable privations and torment. We owe them release and vengeance. Make a mountain of their skulls. I will offer one gold dragon for every Ironborn head and five for every Westerner you return to their loves ones."

She did not spoke of liberation or hope. After what the murderous animals had done to Lannisport, those Westerners who had been captured as thralls or salt wives must be begging for death in the dungeons of Pyke, Blacktyde and the other Ironborn citadels. All because her husband had not considered likely that their enemies would attack them in the rear while the elite of their forces was campaigning and dying in the Riverlands. Brushing her pale blond hair aside, Johanna tried to find the consolation none of the parties responsible for this disaster were going to see the end of the year.

"Worry not, my Lady." The smile of the Reach Captain told her what she expected them to do during the future invasion been completely understood. "We are going to teach these pirates the price of rebellion."

* * *

 **Lord Royce Caron**

For a council supposed to decide the fate of a great Kingdom, the Council of Antlers had not the accommodations, the audience and the decorations which went usually with a prestigious event. Royce had been there at the Great Council of Harrenhal when King Jaehaerys I had summoned the Lords of the realm. It had been thirty years ago and he had only been the Heir of the Lord of the Marches, a young knight who believed chivalry ruled the world and summer would never end. But he remembered the splendour of the Council. Hundreds of Lords, Ladies and their families had come in the best attire. Red, blue, grey, green, yellow: all the colours had been included in the parade armours, the dresses and the tunics. The tourney organised had seen hundreds of jousts, a glorious melee, an archery contest where one of House Caron's archer had achieved three perfect shots and a horse race. It had rained drinks and poured meals – unless it was the reverse. There had been no great feuds. Northerner had got drunk with Stormlanders. Reachers had courted Riverlander beauties. Westerners had been delighted to blind the Crownlanders and Valemen with their wealth and their finely crafted jewels. And it had been done at Harrenhal. The castle had been in full rebirth with the newly created House Strong. Renovations had been ordered with three of the five colossal towers and three small villages had burst into existence around the God's Eye, providing plenty of enthusiast hands to erase the damage made by the elements and the Black Dread. In all the way it counted, the Great Council of 101AC had celebrated the power's height of the Targaryen dynasty. That a generation later the succession decision taken at Harrenhal had contributed to the disastrous war was bitter irony. Prince Viserys Targaryen and Laenor Velaryon had been the final contenders...and the one which had been unable to make sure the peace of the realm lasted. If only Laenor had been willing to sire children with Rhaenyra...if only Viserys had not chosen to remarry with the Hightower viper...but it was too late for the regrets and Royce knew the dead could not be brought back to life.

This was the reason of their presence in front of the Antlers on this cold day. The sky was a dark grey but at least it had stopped snowing. It was freezing, harsh weather for anyone but a man living north of the Neck. Large fires burnt near the small tents where the soldiers camped and the greatest one was providing light and warmth for the tents where his King and the Black pretender were going to talk. A foreigner might ask why the two most important persons of Westeros were meeting outside. One look at the ruins of the Antlers was enough to guess why. The castle had received the fate of many Crownlands and Riverlands holdfasts: immolation by dragonfire. For once the responsible had not been Vhagar; the defiance of House Buckwell had angered Daemon Targaryen and Caraxes had proved in less than three turns of hourglasses it was largely able to destroy a castle by itself. The survivors of House Buckwell had taken refuge south of the Wendwater, leaving a score of servants watch over what was left of their lands. This outcome made the Antlers the closest thing the two sides had of a neutral ground. Neither Maidenpool nor King's Landing had been deemed suitable by the side which didn't hold it.

Then there were the delegations. In past blessed times, the weight of traditions and culture would have forced each Noble House to bring scores of followers, trusted retainers and Knights. For two Kings of Westeros, the servants alone should have numbered in the thousands. But the war had happened. The Green and the Black Lords didn't trust their once-neighbours and now mortal enemies. King Daeron had come with three advisors to these negotiations and four score of men for sole escort. Baela Targaryen had arrived with the same numbers, though Royce had noticed one of the men in the escort was Lord Tomard Umber...force was to recognise the whispers of him having giant blood in his veins had an inch or two of truth. According to certain rumours, the Lord of Last hearth had slain Borros Baratheon...of course they were countless other names claiming to have done the deed. The death of the Hand of King had been a full melee and in the chaos of war...

King Daeron chose this moment to leave the ten where had been waiting close to a fire reading some papers related to inheritance issues. With a magnificent gold crown - rubies, emerald and sapphires were inserted on it - on his head, a large doublet of fur coming from a great brown bear and Blackfyre to his side, the legitimate sovereign of Westeros had the noble appearance of his rank. Royce felt largely underdressed but he had had not many winter clothes and had preferred wearing the maximum of layers rather than enduring the vicious bite of the northern winds. Lord Shermer had chosen the same kind of clothes; Captain-General Belicho had chosen more flamboyant things: tiger fur, golden torques and generally a lot of jewellery which had in common the characteristics of being shiny, expensive and distinctively Essossi in origin.

Needless to say, none of the three men would have accompanied their sovereign to this Council before Bosworth Bridge. Not if Daeron wanted to treat in good faith – which as far as Royce Caron knew, was the case. But the battle had devastated the highborn ranks, hundreds lying dead in the cold grave of the river and the luckiest ones were prisoners of war. His status was on the rise...whether this was a good thing remained to be seen. This war had a habit of cutting down those who rose to claim its spoils. At the King's command, the two Westerosi and the sellsword commander marched to the great tent waiting for him and entered. Royce sighed in relief as they suddenly were no longer at the mercy of the terrible winter. Mere instants later, it was the turn of the Black delegation to come in.

None of the four persons who represented the Riverlands, Valemen and Northerners could be compared to the Green cause. There were almost no jewels, no gold, no symbol of their charge. The young woman leading them wore a simple diadem encircling a great ruby but the rest of her clothes were simple black fur from an unknown animal over a red tunic. So this was Baela Targaryen. Royce had expected her to be taller and far more impressive. She was pretty no doubt with her long silver hair and her pure violet eyes but her frailty made him wonders how in the Seven Hells Aegon the Second of the Name had managed to lose a dragon battle against her.

The man to her left huffed like a large walrus and has the appearance of one. If Royce and his fellow highborn had chosen to bring large layers of furs, the man below the white bear furs was literally buried under them. The brooch of a mermaid identified him as a Manderly. The second man was a dark-haired fellow wearing black furs and black clothes – he looked ready to join the Night's Watch. The third envoy wasn't a man at all but a woman; the brown-coloured furs and the emblem of the black tree told him this had to be Alysanne Blackwood. In his mind, he shivered as he reminded the reports affirming the woman had castrated hundreds of Westerners after the Battle-by-the-Lakeshore.

"Cousin." The tone of the young woman was warmer than the snow outside...but not much. Well at least it answered the questions the Lord of Nightsong had answered to himself.

"Cousin." Replied diplomatically Daeron.

All eight participants seated in silence on each side of the middle-sized rectangular table.

"Can we begin?" Asked politely King Daeron. Nods of approval came from the men and the women chosen by the two sides. "Very well. I declare the Council of Antlers opened. I think we all know why we are here."

A smirk came to the lips of the young dragoness.

"I suppose it's not to agree to my generous offer. You know cousin, the one where you bend the knee and recognise me as your Queen?"

To his credit, Daeron managed to keep a level-headed and calm tone.

"I respectfully decline. Cousin."

"How sad." The mock regret on the Black Targaryen's young visage ceased after that remark.

"We are here to put an end to this war." Grumbled Shermer. "Such a grave affair is no time for pleasantries of this kind."

"Admirable, really admirable. What solutions is your King ready to accept to end this conflict?" For such a big representative, the voice of the Manderly was curiously soft and as he had profited from the interlude to remove several layers of his winter disguise, showing deep and piercing intelligent eyes to rest of his peers.

"If the Black Lords and Ladies are ready to bend the knee, I will issue a general pardon for them. As long as the swords are sheathed and the banners having fought with the Black Dragon agree to renew their allegiance to the Iron Throne, I will let sleeping dragons lie. Enough blood has been shed."

This was a reasonable and generous proposition indeed in Royce's opinion but as he looked the expressions of the Black delegation, one face in particular showed him this was not bloody likely to be accepted. The noble visage of Alysanne Blackwood was a grimace of hate.

"You speak finely of peace and that we must forget and forgive, Prince Daeron." A few sigh came to the lips of his King at the refusal of the royal title. "Yet it was your brother who torched the Riverlands from Pinkmaiden to Cracklaw Point. It was your family who transformed our homes, our fields, our forests and our families into mountain of corpses and plains of ashes."

This time Royce felt he had to intervene.

"Prince Daemon and his own wife caused as much damage with Caraxes and Syrax!"

This time it was the time of the Black Pretender to throw him an icy glare and Royce remembered – a bit late, sure – that the silver-haired Princess had idolised her father.

"Prince Consort Daemon gave his enemies the choice to surrender. The Kinslayer never gave the smallfolk and the lords of the Riverlands a chance. As a matter of fact the rider of Vhagar was so cruel and bloodthirsty he burnt quite a few holdfasts supporting your cause before my father put him down like the mad dog he was."

That reveal made everyone on the Green side of the table wince. One, because unfortunately the sort of thing Prince Aemond was known to do when he had the blood singing in his head. Secondly, because if it was true then the Riverlands were forever lost to their cause. A lord or two settling the feuds on your lands was a too common affair in this region and would be forgotten in a decade. Annihilating an entire House, its villages and all its inhabitants in a dragonfire inferno was going to be remembered for the next centuries.

"We will not bend the knee to the brother of a monster and a kinslayer who for all we know organised the betrayal of Tumbleton." Added the Lady of Raventree Hall.

"I had no part in this." Denied Daeron with a strained voice. "Unlike your troops when they butchered the Lannister survivors of the Lakeshore."

Royce thanked the Seven this was the moment Captain-General Belicho chose to intervene. The two sides had left their weapons away with their escorts but Lady Alysanne and King Daeron looked ready for a fist fight.

"Your arguments have merit but if none of you are willing to bend the knee to the other solve your problems in the Volantene manner."

The Lord of Nightsong was so startled he stayed speechless. What sort of game the sellsword was playing at?

"Organising an election at a new Great Council you mean?" Baela Targaryen narrowed in concentration. "An intriguing idea to be sure..."

"One which would be unlikely to work." Amended the Manderly emissary while taking somehow out of his layers a sort of pastry and swallowing it. "Mhh...Assuming each kingdom would have one vote, the North, the Riverlands and the Vale would vote for us while the Reach, the Stormlands and the Westerlands would vote for you. The Crownlands have so few lords left I don't think we can be sure where their vote would go...and the Iron Islands have declared their independence from the realm."

Three votes against three, damn. Though Royce smiled at the idea the Ironborn could have been kingmakers if they weren't so enamoured with their pirate activities and Iron Price.

"With winter here none of us have the funds and the supplies to organise a new Great Council like the one of Harrenhal." The voice of their young King turned more demanding, more kingly and filled with authority. "The Seven Kingdoms must be reunited. Our feuds are weakening us and in the longer this war continues, the more time we give to our enemies to raid our coasts, kill our bannersmen and destroy everything the Targaryen dynasty has built for a century."

The two young Targaryen stared at each other for a long moment. No words were exchanged, no gestures of affection were made but Royce had a feeling the two admitted in their hearts that in another and far more happier era, they could have ruled the Seven Kingdoms together in a partnership worthy of the Old Conciliator and his Good Queen.

"Your words rang true but I won't bend the knee to you." Baela Targaryen's face twisted into something between a snarl and a grimace. "I can't. My bannersmen, my people have suffered too much under your swords. They wouldn't accept a kingdom where their enemies are in power."

"I could give you Dragonstone."

"No you can't." Said sadly the young woman who by now truly looked younger than her age. "The Dragonpit is a lost cause; you will need our ancestral home to birth the few dragon eggs you own, cousin. And even if you did, how long until our descendants are again at each other throats? House Targaryen can't afford another family dispute like the one we just fought..."

From then the pleadings and the attempts of reconciliation were blocked and the heart of the two dragonlords wasn't in it anymore. Royce noticed – and he knew the Blacks leaders had thought about it too – that not once the subject of a marriage had been spoken. True, their King was married to Arianne Baratheon but the Conqueror had had two wives and his sisters to boot. Baela Targaryen was a cousin...but perhaps the son of Viserys the First wasn't sure he could handle the Faith.

A detailed map of excellent facture was posed on the table. Royce felt tears coming to his eyes as he contemplated the last moments of the Seven Kingdoms as a single kingdom.

 _How could it come to this_?


	11. Hard Choices

**Chapter 11**

 **Hard Choices**

 **King Daeron Targaryen**

"House Bracken will never accept this!"

The voice of Lord Harrold Bracken clacked like a curse in the royal tent and his tone had nothing respectful in it. Only a glare from Daeron convinced the young red-faced lord to add "Your Grace" a moment later.

"Your lands are lost, Lord Bracken." Told the leader of the Green Targaryens. It was a blunt affirmation but since the first two 'subtle' attempts to convince Harrold Bracken had been unable to see him reason, the time of courtesies was done. "The Iron Throne has not the power to retake them."

"By the Seven Hells, no!" The shout was powerful and the eyes of the Riverlander had a light of madness in them. "House Bracken has fought and died for your cause, you will convince these bastards of Blackwood to give back my seat or I will find someone who will!"

The three Kingsguards guarding Daeron placed their white gauntlets on their swords. Harrold blanched, finally realising he had gone too far and that his anger, no matter how justified, could not be tolerated in front of his sovereign.

"Your Grace..."

One instant the River lord was of a temper hotter than a volcano, the next his lips were trembling and he was about to prostrate himself. Daeron thanked the Seven he had not had the opportunity to discuss his plans concerning the Brackens with anyone else. Because after a meeting like this, he certainly wasn't going to pursue them.

"Stone Hedge is well behind the frontier we have negotiated with the Blacks." Little words: Stone Hedge was in the heart of the Riverlands and the Blacks were in control of said kingdom. "Neither my cousin Baela nor House Blackwood have any reason to give back these lands."

"We were the greatest House of the Riverlands to follow your brother!" Daeron frowned; the Strongs of Harrenhal would have contested vehemently this claim a decade ago. "We fought-"

"And you were vanquished in a single battle, your servants surrendered your castle and the men of your family were sent to take the Black."

As far as a resistance could be judged, House Bracken had performed pathetically in the civil war. Besides House Strong – which for obvious reasons had followed Aegon – House Bracken had managed to convince two minor Knightly Houses to follow them. The rest of the Riverlands had followed Rhaenyra. It would have already been hard to force reconciliations if the Riverlords had been defeated by the Lannisters but the invasion of the Westerners had been a huge disaster. And then Aemond had to burn half of the Riverlands with Vhagar. The Blackwood Lady representing the lords of the Trident had stayed unbreakable on the point no Green loyalist would have his lands back. What they were going to do with the confiscated castles had not been revealed – or perhaps his cousin had not had the time to give her judgement – but Stone Hedge and Harrenhal were lost.

For House Strong, his Master of Whisperers had not been happy but had understood the problem. Larys Strong was the last descendant of his noble line. As he was the last of the original Green Council to be unharmed and working for the realm, appearances counted against him. The black-clad councillor had no children to continue his name thus it was not like they could have maintained their hold and their claims on Harrenhal for long.

But Stone Hedge was proving a monumental headache. Harrold Bracken had not been caught in the rout of the Bracken forces his father had led to defeat: the young man had rushed to King's Landing in order to bend the knee. Several of his cousins were visiting Oldtown too and after the Stormlands army captured the capital these landless knights had come back demanding revenge for their House.

"It was not my father's fault he was betrayed!"

 _The rumours I've heard say otherwise. Beating peasants and sleeping with their daughters was not going to give you their undying loyalty. I was going to propose you marry Lady Rosby but you don't deserve this girl_.

"As compensation for your losses, the Crown gives you the lands of the defunct House Chyttering bordering the Blackwater Rush and the Muddy Rush." It was an important defensible position now that the frontier was mere leagues north of this lordship and the Gold Road was crossing these fields. At least with the Brackens ruling there the rider of Tessarion could be sure there weren't going to betray him for the Blacks. That the Gold Road was certainly going to have a more defensible and southern intersection once the kingdom was rebuilt was left unsaid.

"Your Grace...these lands have not the fertility of the ones we possessed..."

 _How could they when my dear brother took two days to burn them_?

"I'm quite aware of this, Lord Bracken. But with the kingdom destroyed by this tragic war, we all have to make sacrifices."

 _I accepted at the peace I was going to rule half of a kingdom; you can accept you are going to rule a minor lordship_.

The man who should be Lord of Stone Hedge had an answer to this sentence, but it had not to be very polite because he gritted his teeth, bowed like someone was at the same time tearing his guts and left his tent like someone was impaling him with a spear from behind. Daeron sighed loudly. He had known in his mind the Bracken-Blackwood feud was a poison many Kings, Lord Paramounts, warlords, septons and conquerors had desperately tried to find an antidote but he had hoped that at least with the two enemy Houses on different sides, the question was going to be solved permanently. The Seven had not agreed to this miracle alas.

Removing the horse banners from his preoccupations for the short-term, King Daeron I of House Targaryen watched the map of the new Westeros. An aberration the Conqueror and the Conciliator would have never imagined in the last years of their reign...but one he had been forced to accept.

Instead of a single realm from the Wall to Sunspear, there were now three: one governed by his cousin Baela, one for himself and the last was the Princedom of Dorne.

After pardoning Lord Rowan and several other minor Reach highborn, he had the Reach, the Stormlands, the Westerlands and the better part of the Crownlands. On parchment, this was an excellent position if he decided to take again the field against the Blacks.

The problem was that parchment did not show the dragons. As the year 132 after the Conquest was going to begin, he had the single battle-dragon of the Targaryens. But in a decade, both Baela and her twin sister were going to mount large beasts. Moondancer would be a match for Tessarion in four to five years and there was no way to know how big Morning was going to be. That the two Black sisters would have only the Riverlands, the North, the Vale and minor parts of the Crownlands didn't reflect the rapport of force. The Blacks held Cracklaw Point and Driftmark – he had sent messengers to Lord Velaryon to see if the old man wanted to return home or continue to serve – thus with a dragon they could easily attack King's Landing as the horns of war were sounded.

"And there's the thorn in our western flank. The Iron Islands."

Unlike the rest of the kingdom, neither Black emissaries nor the Green ones had been interested in this den of pirates. Perhaps with a reunified kingdom he could have dealt with them. An occupation would have been in order, but he could have tried to change the Ironborn. Their talks of Drowned God and Iron Price had no place in the Seven Kingdoms. None.

 _Instead I'm going to destroy them root and branch_.

With the civil war with the Blacks all but over, the blood thirst of the Lannisters and the sailors of the Reach had to be stated one way or another. His rule had to be cemented before he came back to his capital. Bosworth Bridge had been a rude blow against his rule. It was Borros Baratheon who had lost most of the army but he was the dragonlord in command. There so few survivors of this mad charge and the smallfolk and the soldiers needed someone alive to blame. Daeron had the utmost need of a victory against a hated foe. The reavers of House Greyjoy more than qualified for the 'hated' part.

 _It will give us time to rebuild. We need years to avoid repeating the mistakes of our past and hatch a new generation of dragons. We grew too lax and overconfident and it was nearly our doom_.

The successor of Kings Viserys I and Aegon II was under no illusion his reign's next years were going to be pleasant. Winter was here and every man having the access to a raven was writing to him, demanding men he didn't have, promising peace and obedience in exchange of gold the treasury hadn't the funds to pay. He almost regretted having won the last battle. Almost.

"Leave the tent." He ordered his white sentinels. "I need rest. Tomorrow I fly for the Iron Islands."

 _And we will see if the Ironborn are immune to dragonfire_.

* * *

 **Queen Baela Targaryen**

The Bay of Crabs was very different when the snow fell and the timid winter sun departed. The fog was everywhere and the water was taking a dark grey reflexion. The blue sky, the azure waves and the green pastures seemed to be of another age. The young Queen had never understood how different the seasons could be but she and all the children had never seen a hard winter. Now that it was here, Baela wanted summer back. The snow and the frost had begun their cold rule and the colours dominating the landscape were the black, the grey, the dark blue and the white.

This was the grey elemental tapestry Rhaena and she were watching silently hand in hand. Too long the war and the necessities of war had separated them; after the details of the peace the young Queen had decided it was not going to stand. A dragon was faster and safer than any ship and the Vale was not that far for a dragon. Rhaena had known a nice place a few hourglasses of ride west of Gulltown and now they were alone to speak and pour the content of their hearts to the others. It was it should be for these instants. They had come in this world together, separate but bonded by something unbreakable. And this would continue until they left this world.

Today the light tunics, the robes and the fine court clothes had been discarded. They wore furs, gloves, furred boots and warm winter clothes. The hissing wind and the cold coming from the large made this fashion of Northerners a necessity.

Before them, Morning and Moondancer played together in the snow. Or rather it was more accurate to say her dragon let the bonded of her twin sister mount on her back and amuse itself. Both dragons had grown tremendously, but whereas Morning had the size of a middle-sized dog, Moondancer was now close to ten feet from head to the end of her tail and it was getting more difficult to saddle and climb on her dancer without help. Yes, the dragons had grown fast...suspiciously fast indeed. That it had happened after their departure from Dragonstone and the moment they were both able to watch over their dragons day and night raised disturbing questions. Granted after the mutiny the new Black Queen had not been exactly tight-lipped concerning the lack of honour possessed by the garrison of Dragonstone but this was a betrayal far more ancient and terrible. Attacking the dragons was attacking the power of House Targaryen and the very stability of the realm. Who would be mad enough to risk that?

It was possible she was jumping at shadows. The dragons had not known war for too long and she had sometimes heard her father tell to the Queen in a few conversations that certain parts of the Targaryen lore should not have been abandoned like the Conciliator had wanted.

"The war is over." Three little words and yet her sister words had only a certain relief in them, not joy. It had cost them too much. Rhaena next sentence strangely echoes her thoughts. "It does not feel like a victory."

"The only victory I see is that we're both alive and haven't lost our dragons, Rhae." On the other hand except their cousin Jaehaera no dragon rider had survived the loss of their bonded for long. The Dance had just been too dangerous and the dangers of battle and politics had killed Kings and smallfolk indifferently.

"There's truth in that." Agreed Rhaena. They exchanged a tender glance and then came the terrible question. "What now?"

The eldest of the twins swallowed her saliva and almost bit her lower lip but refrained due to the cold.

"Much as I hate to say it...we have certain...obligations to fulfil. We are the last of the legitimate Targaryen line so we will have to marry soon. And Jacaerys signed this Pact of Ice and Fire with Lord Cregan Stark."

In other circumstances the prospect of marriage would have made her giggle but not this year. This would not be a union where they could wait to have children; the stakes were too important and with Daeron already married in the South and siring new Green dragonriders, the Black Crown had to be secured.

"What do you think Jacaerys was thinking?" Demanded Rhaena as Morning stopped squealing and went back for another series of caresses. "When he agreed to it we were the only two princesses of House Targaryen able to satisfy the pact conditions."

"We still are." The slayer of King Aegon II corrected her with amusement.

"Yes but right then you were betrothed with Jacaerys and I was supposed to marry Lucerys."

"Betrothals can and have been broken for far less important reasons, Rhae." The betrothals in question had been agreed at the age of two and the Seven Kingdoms had been a happier and calmer realm. An era where the many dragons possessed by House Targaryen had rendered the armies of knights obsolete and purity of the Valyrian bloodline was the only quality prized at court. "Signing this Pact gave us fourteen thousand swords and Lord Stark went south only with the old men and the green boys."

Her twin sister's eyebrows rose in amusement.

"So there isn't any truth to the rumours that Jacaerys bedded one of the Stark women?" Baela growled in mock anger. Of course these wild and outrageous whispers had reached the Vale. "For all we know it was you he wanted to break the betrothal with."

"Winterfell didn't send a raven to inform us we had a new cousin. If there had been a bedding it couldn't be proven...unless someone had kept the bloodied sheets."

"Keep telling you this, Bae." The large smile of her twin told the Black Queen she hadn't finished hearing these rumours. Then the expression of Morning's bonded grew more serious. "Lord Cregan Stark has a single son named Rickon to fulfil the Pact. If you marry him, you will unite House Targaryen and House Stark for the next generation."

Baela could have lived with that. The three kingdoms under her rule –since the lordships she had left in the Crownlands were small in income and men – likely wouldn't. If she married the Heir of Winterfell, the Vale and the Riverlords were going to argue she favoured the North and their lords too much...and they likely would be in the right. The new sovereign had plans for the North and some of those coincided with the new dragon hatchery they would have to build in a few years, Dragonstone being no longer available.

"I can't marry him...not if I want to have a lasting peace and keep these annoying children from murdering each other." Women were by far the most reasonable when it came to govern. Half of the lords and knights she had met to the present were utterly undeserving of their noble status and the war had eliminated a lot of them.

"Your loss if he's good-looking!" Exclaimed Rhaena and they both laughed. Moondancer intrigued by their discussion sent a lot of snow in their direction with his tail, fixing back their attention on the swift fire-breathing reptile. "Don't worry I will invite you in our bed if your husband isn't a good lover." The gaze of her twin became more piercing. "How many roguish knights are vying for your hand?"

"Scores." Replied Baela. The real number was unknown to her but somewhere around a hundred was her best guess. "But if I remove Rickon Stark from the list, then all Heirs of the Nobles Houses can't be chosen for the same reason. Ideally the husband I need is a second son having distinguished himself in battle and whose House has no grand enmity with its neighbours."

Rhaena hissed in consternation. "This must make a dent in your choices."

"Oh, yes." Before the war it would not have been the case. But after years of massacre and Houses reduced to a single boy of a cadet line, second sons had more often than not become Lords of their own lands. "But there are two who can check these conditions. Ser Allyn Melcolm and Ser Addam Frey."

"Was not his father Lord Forrest Frey one of the leading candidates for Queen Rhaenyra?" From her voice, Rhaena knew perfectly the answer to this question.

"He was." Baela affirmed before realising the trap she had just fallen into. "My decision has nothing to do with that!"

"Of course, you Grace." Her youngest sister could not have been more playful. With a large huff she placed Morning on her right shoulder. "But if men are not to your taste, Lady Frey will...hoof!"

The snowball Baela had launched was received directly on the face. Unavoidably Moondancer decided to join the fun and soon the two sisters were bombarding their large opponent while trying to avoid the snow gusts send by her dancer's tail.

* * *

 **Balon Pyke**

They landed at Lordsport at high tide, under a dark sky. After long fortnights of campaign, Balon saw at last his home. In a manner of speaking, of course. The house where his mother had raised him wasn't the castle of Pyke, whose tall and black towers stood gloomily in the distance. It wasn't one of these timber constructions lining the quays or one of the princely taverns alongside the great forges. No, his house was much further than this, at the very limit of Botley and Wynch lands and could be described best as a small thing near the village of Cape Bone. He honestly didn't know the welcome he would receive upon his return there. It was not like Balon had had many choices when the old sea wolves had come at his house under the Red Kraken orders. But still, the looks his mother had sent him this day had been anything but warm. Or were they? After so much war, so many battles and the long moons of separation, his souvenirs were a bit...rusty.

Would he go back there tomorrow? The Bastard of Pyke didn't know. The longships weren't going to stay here eternally; everyone knew the next destination of the reavers and the captains was Old Wyk.

With the feeling of stones in his stomach, Balon waited for the _Sea Ravager_ to finish its manoeuvres and allow its passengers to descend ashore. All around the great hull, other longships made similar moves and tried to claim the best place for themselves. The traditional shouts and insults were heard, but even with the best mood he couldn't find any joy in them. Because this was it. At the end of the journey, this was the end of the great reaving King Dalton Greyjoy had promised them. The Ironborn had come back home, but not as the true and sole masters of Westeros. The longships were terribly damaged, their sails bloody and torn, their bridges dirty of the crewmen souls who had died on it.

They were defeated. Despite having taken huge amounts of plunder from the Westerlands, crushed armies, sacked Lannisport and grabbed a mountain of gold, thralls and salt wives for themselves, they were defeated. That the quays of Lordsport were far adequate to house the entire portion of the fleet they had navigated with spoke of their own losses better than simple words. The Red Kraken had left Pyke with eight scores of longships, and these swift and deadly ships had soon been joined by full squadrons from Orkmont, Harlaw, Blacktyde, Saltcliffe and Great Wyk.

Today there were four scores of longships coming back home, led by the Lord of Orkmont and none of the great captains of Pyke were with it. Balon dearly hoped men like Lord Captain Tristifer Botley, Lord Urragon Goodbrother or Lord Harren Wynch were already gone for the kingsmoot or had had their progression slowed down by the tempests and the contrary winds. The Drowned God knew the _Sea Ravager_ had had its share of problems from the Shield Islands to Saltcliffe.

In the two or three turn of hourglasses they waited the wind rose up. The waves grew larger out of the port and the skies went even darker. A storm was preparing, a sign of the disfavour of the Drowned God if there was one. The Ironborn had been defeated and now the Storm God was going to unleash its rains upon their heads. The winds were cold and despite having a coat and a cape over his tunic Balon could not stop shivering. Some of the warriors who had lost everything in the rout had their teeth clacking and were trying to keep themselves warm at all costs.

Finally they disembarked and what a sad sight it was. The Shield Islands hadn't been a nice sight, but before it the Iron Fleet had pillaged the Westerlands and their green hills – green before they spilled the blood of the greenlanders on them in the name of the Drowned God. Lannisport had been gold, silver and jewels before they sacked it. In the lights of autumn, the lands of House Lannister had been red, green, brown and something between these three colours. It had been good to have these hills and valleys under their axes. But Pyke was none of those things. There were not the powerful stone forts of the Western coast, not the cultivated fields of the Lions passes or the prosperous villages of the Golden Road. There was nothing of the Westerlands which could be seen here. Pyke was bleak, wet and cold. As a gust of wind struck his group, the half-brother of the deceased Iron King remarked with unease no one was cheering.

They were marching on the quays and approaching the warehouses and the forges of Lordsport, but no one was cheering. Oh, there were some acclamations here and there but as he watched some of these scenes, the exclamations came from old women asking from warriors they recognised whether they had seen a loved one. In a few cases, this was the case and the lucky elders shed tears when they had their child or their grandchild in their arms. But many, many times the answers were negative. And everywhere he looked, there were only sad and gaunt faces. Balon didn't understand. With the quantities of gold, silver and jewellery they had taken from the Lannisters, everyone in the Iron Islands should a King or a Queen!

The crowd grew larger as they passed before the harbourmaster and stopped before the wooden walls where House Botley mustered in times of war. Balon didn't like what he saw. The faces of the Lordsport dwellers were either too old or too young. There were girls who looked to be of marriageable age but no young man, no warrior of thirty or forty name days. And they were thin. Not starving, but they weren't eating three meals a day either.

"Bread, my lord." Begged an old man missing his right leg. The strangest part was the man had a sort of gold crown on his head and six rings with jewels around his fingers. "Please a piece of bread..."

"You have gold and rubies, cripple!" Answered a man with a cuirass decorated with a scythe and a sword crossed. "Sell them and eat your bread!"

The one-legged elder screamed. It took a long moment to Balon and the warriors next to him to realise he was laughing.

"Gold and rubies, you say?" The eyes of the man were terrible to behold. "Everyone has gold and rubies these days! But we have no bread!"

"Lies!" Shouted back a Botley man who had somehow managed to arrive next to the old man despite how packed the bodies were and seized him by the throat in an implacable grip. "Our granaries were full when we departed and thousands of reavers were away! You can't have eaten the provisions of several years!"

The old man wasn't able to answer with an iron fist grabbing him like this but then the reaver did not want one.

"And what of the thousands of thralls you brought here?" Screamed someone in the crowd. Balon and the survivors of the campaign tried to search for the speaker, but apart from hearing the woman's voice they couldn't see anything. "The thousands of men and women you took for your damned Iron Price!"

The crowd was thickening and the mood was worsening as each word was spoken. Women were arriving by the hundreds, some showing the collars and the tattoos of the salt wives. But there was no happiness in the green, blue, grey, brown and dark eyes. Only a deep anger. There was blame too.

"We gave you gold!" Screamed back the Botley swordsman, crushing the poor cripple's throat and throwing him to the ground. "We gave you victories! We gave you wealth! We gave you a kingdom in the name of the Drowned God!"

Another mounted voice mounted in the air. This time it was a man's voice.

"What do you want us to make with gold? We can't eat it and no one wants to trade with us!"

A Goodbrother screamed back in an even more exasperated voice.

"Then go back fishing or harvest the fields!"

It was getting out of control and in the ranks the young reaver wasn't enjoying this return. The mood of the crowd was furious.

"You took all our young men and you want us to work! In the fields and at sea! In winter!"

"The Drowned God and the Red Kraken have decreed we all have to play our part for the Iron Islands to gain our independence! The Kingdom of the Isles will be reborn anew!"

This declaration had come from a contingent of Greyjoy reavers and they brayed battle-cries, commemorating the memory of their liege. Axes were raised; fists struck the breastplates of the armours. It was like an agitated sea...but the crewmen were surrounded by an even greater flooding of cold silence.

"Where is the Red Kraken?" Asked someone.

"Yes! Where is he?"

The cries of support and the fake cheerfulness of the reavers went away like the wine at a celebration.

"He's dead and they're defeated!"

It was like a monumental storm was breaking all barriers and there was nothing to stop it. Warriors of countless campaigns went pale as their own women, parents and neighbours spit their anger and despair at them.

"Dead! Dalton Greyjoy is dead!"

"Dead! Dead!"

"Bread! We want bread!"

"The Red Kraken is dead!"

"Where is the kingdom the Drowned God promised us?"

A chain of men formed in the middle of the streets and Balon imitated them with the reavers of the _Sea Ravager_. They had to calm things. These were their fellow Ironborn and they didn't know the truth. But the crowd was screaming bloody things, demanding bread, asking where their children were. And then a last scream destroyed everything.

"The dragons will come!"

Balon felt his blood freeze in his veins. The dragons. The gigantic lizards they had all forgotten. Rumours from the greenlanders in the Reach were that most of the beasts were dead. But what if they weren't? Dalton had stopped listening to the Blacks and declared himself Iron King? House Greyjoy and the rest of the islands forming the Seastone Throne. They weren't sworn to the Targaryens. They would receive no mercy from the Targaryens after what they had done to the Westerlands.

"Damn the Red Kraken!" The young woman who had screamed this was Ironborn, no doubt about this. With dark hair and a rather pretty face, Balon would have bedded her without questioning his chance. She was on the front of the Lordsport populace and her visage was anger itself. "Damn the-"

The insult died on her lips as a dagger found its way in her belly and a huge reaver with Blacktyde colours kicked her in the head with enough force to kill a horse on the spot.

"Don't insult the Red Kraken bitch! You aren't worthy to even pronounce his name!"

Balon's mouth stayed wide open at the sudden death. It was not possible. Ironborn should not spill the blood of other Ironborn. Not outside of proper duels, finger dances and contests of strength. It was forbidden. It was madness!"

"Assassin!"

"Murderer!"

"Who will protect us when the dragons will come?"

"Assassin!"

"Coward!"

"Woman killer!"

"Rapists and degenerates!"

A Volmark warrior drew his axe from his belt. It was the wrong move to make.

The crowd pushed screams of vengeance and charged. And Balon and the other men found themselves fighting against the daggers and cudgels of their own people. It was chaos, blood and folly. It was war and most of the men didn't know for who and what cause they were fighting. Maybe they were battling in the name of the Drowned God. A moment to regain his breath and he watched his sword red of Ironborn blood.

 _Dalton...we have completely failed_.

* * *

 **Nettles**

Her beloved dragon had always loved sheep but under the present conditions, elk was a fitting substitute. After eating it to compare, she couldn't find much of a difference and she doubted Sheepstealer had, given how long he had roasted his meat.

It was fortunate, because there were not a lot of sheep in the area. Sheep were animals of the South, and stupid animals at that. The slightest movement of panic could kill scores of them and the smallest predators could feast on them. Sheep thrived in summer and raced back to the sheepfold when the weather went rainy or cold. A winter like this one would see them hid in the warm places of their refuge, bleating in contentment at the free food and water they were given.

Sometimes she envied the sheep. They did not concern with the problems of life, had no leader and they were eating and drinking where and when it was possible. Men were handling the big problems like cutting their wool and trimming their hooves. Sheepfolds with straw to serve as a mattress and a pillow were their required nightly accommodations where humans protested the floor was too hard for their backs. Sheep lived short and simple lives. Sheep were souvenirs of a better time.

 _If only I hadn't decided to become a dragonrider_...

Sheepstealer growled next to her, as if he could sense her thoughts. Maybe he could. Nettles didn't know everything a dragon could and could not do, and this included the bond between those who rode the dragons and their mounts.

But when Prince Jacaerys had announced everyone who was a dragonseed could take his chance and try mounting the fearsome dragons, Nettles was forced to admit she had not hesitated long. A life of adventures on her own legendary mount? Instead of leading day and night her sheep on the dangerous slopes of Dragonstone? Between the choice of a Targaryen's power and a shepherdess life, she had chosen the former. In her veins flowed the blood of the dragonlords. According to her mother in her young years, her grandmother had been taken by a Prince once though she had never learned his name. Her mother had inherited the silver hair, but not her.

Unlike others, Nettles had not been willing to bet everything on the dragonblood. Magic or not magic, dragonseed could try their chance with dragons but many had been burned, eaten or killed. So she had waited and waited, watching the dragons, their nests, what they liked eating and how they behaved on Dragonstone. The one they called the Cannibal was too dangerous. This one had tasted human and dragon flesh alike. In the miraculous event she managed to mount it, her control would be forever threadbare and tenuous. Dragons were not dogs, cats or sheep. Having their confidence and their trust did not mean this was going to save you when they were furious or hungry. And when they were afraid or angry, they breathed fire. And when the dragonfire came, you were dead. No Targaryen or Valyrian had ever survived the hellish flames.

The Grey Ghost had been a far more suitable companion but the grey dragon only liked fishes. A lot of fishes and Nettles was only a young shepherdess. How in the Seven Hells could she catch enough fishes to attract a dragon? So only Sheepstealer had been left. The ugly, brown-coloured dragon everyone had refused when it proved too dangerous and too wild. But one ship every day for an entire fortnight and Sheepstealer was her new partner. That day the dragonseed-born girl had understood a valuable lesson: dragons were like armies, if you wanted them to obey you had to keep them happy and well-fed. Especially well-fed.

She had become a dragonrider. And she had learned new lessons. That both sides in this war were as mad and bloodthirsty as the other. That a young shepherdess of modest and illegitimate parentage was about as welcome in the games of the powerful as slice and dirt. The Queen she had sworn herself to was mad and deranged. Prince Consort Daemon Targaryen had been interested in her and she had willingly slept with him, his looks and the protection he granted her were too useful to throw away. But then the Queen had asked for all bastards and dragonseeds to be put down, everything had gone to the Seven Hells. Rhaenyra insanity and jealousy had finally destroyed whatever good there was in her. The young shepherdess had seen a portrait of a young Rhaenyra once. It was difficult to see that the obese woman screaming and shouting endlessly about traitors was the same young Princess who had been nicknamed the Realm's Delight.

It could have ended another way. In their last night at Maidenpool, she had tried to convince Daemon to fly away, ignore the Queen edicts and rally the last armies of the Black Dragon. Rhaenyra was not going to last long; her fat body and her horrifying traits were those of the Cruel. And cruel people did not last long when the dragons and the humans starved.

 _Lesson one to be a Queen: keep your sheep...sorry your people well-fed_.

But Daemon hadn't wanted to live. Nettles had given him her heart, but the Rogue Prince's had never been in the palm of her hand. Rhaenyra. It had always been Rhaenyra. Daemon had gone to Harrenhal to die, leaving her alone and without protectors. For a turn or two of hourglasses, she had thought of raising her own banner in defiance. She had a dragon. She had royal blood. She had wits – something her previous Queen did not have a lot. But these were dreams of madness, she had known it. Queens, Kings, Princes and Lords died like leaves in the autumn wind. If she had tried to take the crown, then the result would be her death.

And so she fled.

First to the Mountains of the Moons. When she had seen their peaks and their flock of goats, she had thought to stay there for a couple of fortnights. Only to be attacked by the clansmen in the middle of the night. Sheepstealer had roasted a full score of them, but the damage had been done. This part of the Vale would not be a refuge but her grave if she stayed. She had debated continuing east and crossing the Narrow Sea, but the Three Sisters and the Free Cities were no friends of the dragons. If she wanted to live, she had to stay in Westeros. Taking the furs and the supplies of the clansmen killed, Nettles had ordered Sheepstealer to fly northwards.

To the North and security. She had waited in the savage hills north of White Harbor two moons, letting Sheepstealer eat the great animals inhabiting this part of the Seven Kingdoms while she made regular travels to the city. She had still a purse full of dragons from her battles fought in the name of the Queen and people loved to speak like the sheep were bleating. Two moons and she had known how much worse things had become. Prince Daemon and Prince Aemond the Kinslayer had killed each other at Harrenhal. The Second Battle of Tumbleton had provoked more human and draconic deaths. The Ironborn were ravaging the West and moving southwards. Rhaenyra –or Maegor-with-tits as the merchants and workers enjoyed calling her – was dead. Aegon the Pretender was dead. In fact except from a younger brother of Aegon and her lover's twin daughters, the rumours were that everyone was dead.

Nettles had now the biggest dragon of all the Seven Kingdoms – well the Cannibal was bigger but no one had managed to mount it and live. If she rallied the Blacks, the Northern and River lords could defeat the thousands of Reach and Storm troops the Greens would align on the battlefield. There was only a little problem with this happy ending. The nights of passion she had spent with her royal lover at Maidenpool had left her a present. One which was tending her belly and was now becoming impossible to hide.

Nettles the dragonrider of Sheepstealer could be accepted in service of a Black Queen. Nettles the mother of a royal bastard would never be able to sleep soundly again for the rest of her life. Assuming she managed to stay alive of the war, the assassins of both sides would receive the order to track and kill them, her and her child. She didn't want this kind of life. She didn't want her unborn child to have this life. Better go to a land where her fame and the news of living dragons travelled slowly.

Sheepstealer had flown northwards and they had passed over the Wall before camping in caverns west of the Haunted Forest. The climate was terribly cold, but there were a lot of animals for a dragon to hunt – the very cavern she was waiting now had been inhabited by a gigantic bear but the beast had been no match for a dragon. In one fortnight or two, she would try to find a village and someone to help for the birth of her child. There was still time, her belly was not fully swollen yet but better not to wait too long. Complications in childbirth meant death in these lands known as Beyond-the-Wall.

As for what she would do once her child was born...she hadn't decided. Perhaps she would explore this strange and cold forest. Maybe she would convince the wildlings to bend the knee. Anyway she had time.

As long as the other dragonlords tried to kill each other, no one would look in this direction and search a poor little shepherdess and her brown dragon.

* * *

 **Viserys Targaryen**

The sun was hot and there was no wind. On the white balcony of the Rogare palace, Viserys knew with resignation this was going to be a day best passed in the cold rooms of his host, reading books and discussing philosophy with the tutor the patriarch of House Rogare had consented to hire.

The simple act of descending a series of stairs and watching for a short moment the harbour of Lys was enough to make him transpire. Sweat drops appeared on his forehead and under his arms. If he hadn't been informed of it, the young Prince of the Targaryen dynasty would never have believed this was winter. On Dragonstone and the coasts along the Narrow Sea, winter meant cold winds, terrible tempests, violent rains and this was if the season was short. If the winter was long and hard, lakes and rivers could freeze, entire fleets could be sent to the bottom of the seas, snow could cover the greatest castles and even dragons could die.

But here at Lys? There were from time to time gusts of winds, middle-sized walls and sometimes for several evenings a hot rain dropped on their heads. It was certainly not cold or freezing, though it could be dangerous: those who did venture imprudently at that time in the drowned quarters could be taken and shattered by the fury of the elements.

Lys the magnificent city of pleasure, lust, perfume and slaves. Lys where he was waiting as a hostage. Lys, a Free City at war. The alliance of the Triarchy had not survived the Battle of the Gullet following his capture. The Admiral and two-thirds of his fleet had perished – although they were calling it a victory since they had managed to sack Driftmark. Myr and Tyrosh had broken the alliance – or Lys had broken it first as it was murmured in backdoor dealings. Thus Lys was in a state of hostilities between Myr, Tyrosh and the Seven Kingdoms. They also had 'difficulties' with certain Tiger families of Volantis, the Braavosi, a trade interest of Pentos and the pirates and corsairs had never been more audacious in their raids and sea attacks.

The waters around Lys might be free of the predations of winter, but no Westerosi or Essossi would have described them 'safe'. As a result the length of his captivity, which should have been at worst a few moons – the time for Dragonstone or King's Landing to be informed of it – had become a year. One year had turned into a second and in a few moons it would be a third. With Tyrosh blockading the north of the Stepstones and the corsairs plaguing the Sea of Dorne, Lysene flags had no chance to reach a Black-controlled port – or the majority of the Westerosi harbours on both coasts to say the truth. There were news of Ironborn longships reaving as south as Oldtown in the west and many pirates of the Basilisk Isles had abandoned their usual hunting grounds to feast on the weakened Iron Throne. And unfortunately with the length it took for Essossi diplomats to negotiate a treaty at the best of times, the future for him did not look bright.

Viserys was treated with the consideration of a Prince of Valyrian Blood but he had recently become aware this protection would not prevent the Rogares from marrying him. Since they couldn't obtain a ransom from his family, maybe whoever was King or Queen when the war of the Free Cities ended would be willing to pay the ransom and the marriage. The second son of the union between Queen Rhaenyra and Prince Daemon was unfortunately lacking enough information and precedent to know what the Lysene would do if they didn't get the money.

A last look and he went back in the shadows of the palace. Watching Lys was pleasant, but it always remembered him in the end all this gleaming marble, all these decorations, the artworks and the myriad of imposing machines like the gigantic mechanic clock tower at the centre of the city had been built by tens of thousands slaves. Because this was the real price for the 'civilisation' the Lysene were boasting in front of the non-Lysene. None of these things was built by the nobles and the merchants but by slaves. Slaves like the sailors and inhabitants of Driftmark they had waged war upon. For them, there would be no ransom, no promise of deliverance.

Viserys saw the treatment of these slaves close everyday and the violence they suffered was horrible. Any smallfolk at Dragonstone who was treated like this would have revolted but the men and the women endured with hard expressions. And he could do nothing. Nothing but hope news of his captivity arrived to friendly ears.


	12. The Last Kingsmoot

**Chapter 12**

 **The Last Kingsmoot**

 **Drowned Priest Maron of the Cliffs**

From his observation post on the cliffs of Old Wyk he watched them arrive. The sky was clear and a timid sun lighted the sea but even if it had been a stormy day it would have been impossible to miss the hundreds of sails coming in this direction.

There was no particular order in the arrivals. Humble fishers came before and after renowned captains. The black and gold sails of House Greyjoy were numerous but dispersed next to Volmark, Goodbrother, Orkwood and Sparr banners. Every type of ship was represented. The longships were overwhelming in numbers, but they were also captured war galleys of the West, merchantmen having formerly belonged to wealthy traders of the Reach, captured slavers from Essos and nimble sloops of coastal towns. The greatest of these hulls were boasting over a hundred oars and disgorged thousands when they stopped their course in the middle of the bay. The smallest were dragged ashore by the force of arms of a dozen men. But they were all Ironborn, led by captains who were their own masters and kings between the sky and the sea.

One look was sufficient to see Nagga's Cradle could not possibly contain all these ships. There were fewer reavers and ships than when the Red Kraken had mounted the millenary-old marches of Nagga's Hill, but the hundreds of hulls present were sufficient to encumber the small bay. Not that it stopped the Ironborn to come. There were other bays, other places a galley or a longship could land the passengers it transported. When a king died, nobody in the Iron Islands wanted to miss the succession challenges. Centuries under the Hoares and the thumb of the Iron Throne had not erased it from the hearts and the minds of the Ironborn.

"They came." Vickon the Twice-Drowned was gritting his teeth in anger behind him. "These assassins and madmen..."

"Brother." Maron did not raise his voice but he hoped he made his disappointment limpid to his fellow Drowned Priest.

"Brother." Repeated the Twice-Drowned, his dark hair flowing in the northern wind. "Yes, you are my brother. But those captains and their ships? They are not our brothers! Help pleas are coming from all the Iron Islands, from the valleys and the combs! Villages are torched! Families are raped, hanged and slain from Great Wyk to Harlaw! They are our own people and these captains are murdering them! They make a mockery of our religion tenets!"

"They are angry." He finally said after a long turn of hourglass listening to the waves shattering on the grey stones. "They wanted a heroic return and instead they got insults and blame."

A sinister laughter escaped the lips of Vickon. Judging by his expression, the Priest of the Drumm had never believed in a triumphant return. A new gust of wind arrived, more powerful. Northwards, he could already see dark clouds arriving. A new storm would not be long in coming. Worrying as they had endured two and this was just the beginning of this winter. Their islands rarely knew snowfalls but they more than compensated with the storms.

"They were defeated." A new bark of laughter resonated in the air. "No, they were worse than defeated. They were broken. They were broken by the greenlanders, broken by the death of the King and broken by their own actions. Countless times I urged the Lords and the Captains to raid the granaries and the warehouses of the Lannisters. I told them we were courting disaster. An idiot could see it. They enslaved thousands of Westerners and brought them back to the Iron Islands. They took all the boys who knew how to harvest the fields and provide food for our villages and harbours. They slept on mountains of gold and made sure no one would trade with us."

This was not the first time Vickon was ranting against the course of this war, but the words chilled Maron's bones after hearing this one. Perhaps because this doom-saying predictions had a core of truth for the first time in years.

"We are Ironborn. We will endure."

The retort was particularly bitter, even coming from the most vocal opponent of the Red Kraken.

"We will starve, you mean." A grimace which could never be recognised as a smile passed on the sixty name days-old face. "I have many friends on Harlaw, Blacktyde and Pyke. Our treacherous captains may have done a true bloodbath, but there still are too many people to feed. We have less than one year of supplies if we begin to ration our castles and reavers."

And it wasn't going to happen, of course. Both Drowned Priests knew it. This was a kingsmoot, a moment every captain did his best to impress his friends, rivals and enemies in the hope the multitude of voices would earn him a driftwood crown. Gold, silver, jewels and precious essences would be gifted and traded above all, but the meals were going to be large and the drinks would flow in torrents of red and white nectar. No Ironborn warrior was going to tighten his belt for the next fortnight, the time for every captain of note to come.

"We can raid the Westerlands anew. They have not the men to stop us." Honestly Maron was still far from convinced there was anything left of value in the Lannister-ruled lands; the reavers had mocked their enemies and boasted of burning every habitation on hundreds of leagues on many occasions during the feasts and victory banquets. There was Casterly Rock of course, but the failed assault of Lord Saltcliffe two years ago had proven the Lannister citadel could not be stormed. "The return of the longships will also provide us fishers."

The crowd forming at the base of Nagga's Hill had become consequent as they exchanged these words. There had been a couple of hundred men and women to welcome the captains this morning and mount the tents a kingsmoot demanded. It was mid-day now and the flow was getting stronger not smaller. There had to be thousands of Ironborn in this black mass spread on several leagues and even from their position, they made an astounding racket. Barrels were transported ashore, though it was impossible to say from here if they contained ale, wine, meat or salted fish. Knowing the reavers, he was betting on the two first choices.

"And the Redwyne fleet? They have massacred our best crews and are certainly sailing in this direction as we dither and try to crown a new King." Vickon shook his head in an angry nod. "No, Maron. The time to raid is long past. We must defend our homes now...and pray the Targaryens have no dragons to attack us."

On this the Priest of the Cliffs didn't share the Twice-Drowned fears. "Blacks or Greens, if they had dragons to use against us, they would have shown them by now." By the tales they had heard from captured greenlanders, the dragonlords had not exactly been shy in unleashing dragonfire on the defenceless villages of the Reach, the Crownlands and the Riverlands. The reavers of the Iron Fleet had made the West bleed, but it sounded like the dragons had done far more damage to Westeros. "Karek of the Holy Waves has spoken for moons that he saw the armies of the Greens and the Blacks slaughter each other in his visions. According to him, all their armies and dragons are shadows of what they were before the war."

Vickon spit in the sea in answer of this command.

"Karek is a madman and can't find his backside with both hands even if we gave him a maester to explain how the world works." In other mouths, this would have been considered as dangerous accusations but Karek and Vickon had loathed each other for the last two decades – from the first time they had met each other to be the truth.

"Did you know he wanted to crown the Mad Butcher when the Red Kraken refused the crown the first time?"

"These were rumours, brother." Well, Maron of the Cliffs preferred to think by the will of the Drowned God that they had been rumours. Dalton Greyjoy, the infamous Red Kraken, had been an arrogant and merciless reaver while he was alive, a bloody mind inside a thick skull but he knew some tactics and was a formidable reaver. Moreover, the Lord of Pyke had had the support of the greatest Houses and thousands of warriors, the large treasury his father and grandfather had gathered in their days and a powerful fleet under his name. Terrence 'the Mad Butcher' Harlaw, second son of the Lord of Harlaw, made the Red Kraken like a model of moderation in comparison. His actions in the Sack of Lannisport and scores of little towns had given him the reputation of a monster. And because the wrath of the Storm God had struck the Ironborn, Terrence was probably the new Lord of House Harlaw now. The longships of his father and his eldest brother had been reported sunk at Southshield.

"But it is not with rumours that Karek intend to support the Mad Butcher of Harlaw at the kingsmoot."

"Karek and his Drowned apprentices are only five men." Vickon chuckled under his large beard, perhaps not agreeing with the 'men' part. "They are other Drowned Priests coming and many proud captains to support. Lord Urrathon Goodbrother and Lord Captain Tristifer Botley are lost to us, but I have recognised many sails. Sargon Orkwood, Ralf Farwynd, Gormon Volmark, Asher Codd...without mentioning all the bastards Dalton sired right and left wherever he went raiding and pillaging."

Sending a last glance at the dark clouds of the north, Maron turned his back on the waves and began the long march down the stony trail. Vickon after a long hesitation followed him. The Priests of the Cliffs was glad he did. While Nagga's Cradle appeared relatively close and Old Wyk was a small island, they were not young anymore. The march was going to be long and difficult for their old bones. But as they progressed on the hard and uncultivable rocky terrain, more sails continued to arrive. More mouths to feed, undoubtedly. And not a single great Lord able to unify them except when they were commanded to get drunk.

* * *

 **Lord Sargon Orkwood**

The northern wind was powerful when the great day of the kingsmoot was convened. Sargon wasn't complaining much. The last days had seen plenty of dark clouds, but no true storm. The visibility was appreciable for a captain of the Iron Islands, and the countless ships at anchor could stay in Nagga's Cradle without fear of sinking or being thrown on the grey stones littering the shores. It was not a sunny day, but it was certainly the best weather they could have in winter. Whether it was a good omen or not, it remained to be seen but the Lord of Orkmont prayed the Drowned God for it to be good.

By the time he reached the first steps of Nagga's Hill, the Captain of the Sea Ravager had a sizeable column behind him. The captains sworn to his House were all present and more. The last days had been very profitable for his cause and he had managed to rally the famous captains and reavers of his home island. House Tawney had bowed to him on the second day after their arrival, followed by the minor holdfasts and the independent longships. It was a powerful base and he felt sure two thousand men and forty ships would scream his own name when the moment came.

Sargon was not naive to believe it would be enough to win the kingsmoot; only an idiot believed victory was assured when six of the seven major islands were no friends of his. And Orkwood was not the richest or the most populated island. It had some iron mines, but Great Wyk and Pyke easily surpassed them in quality of the ore and the weight they extracted every year from the earth. And he was not the reaver the Red Kraken was. Then again, no one in this assembly was...

His was not the only group of warriors marching determinedly towards the ancient bones of Nagga, the great sea dragon slain by the Grey King. Hundreds of smallfolk and servants had already taken position on the outskirts with coffers and the war horns of Old Wyk. And from the multiple camps spread around the bays, columns of warriors bigger than the bannersmen he had mustered were advancing.

Some sights were amusing. It looked like Lord Gormon Volmark had been so successful in his reavings thorough the Westerlands that it had given him ideas of greatness. Ideas like melting part of the gold he had taken from House Reyne and using it to forge himself a new armour. The result was...shiny and he had seen entire crewmen giggle at the sight of the golden fish-shaped helm. From the Drowned Priests to the lowest sailors, everybody was now calling Lord Volmark the 'Golden', with nicknames like 'the Fool' or 'the Fish' behind it. Sargon saw it as arrogant and terribly uninspired: unless the enemy was completely blind, wearing this armour was just begging the archers of the other side to strike you down.

There were other captains however that had no place on the sacred soil of Old Wyk. Harras Kenning was one. The man was a coward and while Sargon had not believed the whispers on the Shield Islands about him, he believed them now. The Kenning Captain was always the first to run and steal the gains of loyal men when battles turned ugly. At Pyke there was a great deal of evidence it was his men who had begun the massacre and the coward had left the Greyjoy and Orkwood men deal with the aftermath of the bloodbath. Thus his nickname: the Coward, always eager to take the spoils of war but not fight for them like a proper Ironborn. Terrence Harlaw was the second. Where the 'Mad Butcher' went, the reavers raiding after him always found children corpses. The debates raging around the bonfires had not agreed if the rapes had taken place before or after their deaths but Sargon and the rest of the _Sea Ravager_ 's crew were in no hurry to know. Harwyn 'the Lame Kraken' Pyke was the third. The Red Kraken's eldest bastard son, Harwyn had nothing of the charisma of his genitor. Average at wielding the axe and the sword, mediocre when it came to lead men, unskilled when it was question to command a ship and if the conversations of the women could be trusted, absolutely pathetic under the sheets. The young Balon Pyke he had in his crew was a genius in comparison and the youngster was no great reaver.

Fortunately there were great captains too. Lord Urrathon Goodbrother had perished at Southshield but many of his brothers and cousins had saved their longships and were present on this day. Lord Captain Botley had died from his wounds after bringing back the body of their King but the Botleys were still one of the most prestigious reaver contingent. Far on the left, there was Asher 'the Half-Giant' of House Codd, who had vanquished many knights of the Westerlands on foot and for three fortnights reigned as Master of Sarsfield. Lord Ralf Farwynd, lunatic but without equal when it came to throw spears at the enemy. Lord Dalton Drumm, who always wielded two axes everywhere he went. Lord Wulfric Merlyn, a reaver who had raided and pillaged in the Hade Sea before this war started.

Many of these captains-lords had held no titles and castles when the dragons had descended against each other in flames and deaths. The losses in longships and men had been low in the Westerlands, but they had come back with a vengeance during the assault in the Shield Islands. Ironborn had not the numbers and the tactics to break fortresses defended by powerful garrisons. But those men who had survived were good and were gathered today to elect a new King.

The crowd grew denser and denser facing the old bones and the ancient stairs. In front of them two lines of Drowned Priests were waiting, at their head the venerable Drowned Priest Uthoron of the Old Tides – who most captains called simply 'Old Tide'. There was a big rush in the captains' ranks to be in the first places. No great fighting but one or two fists cracked a few teeth. The crew of a Stonehouse longship and a Wynch one would add one more feud to their already considerable list. Impatience and tensions were filling the air. The reavers and their support had feasted, cried, mourned, feasted and waited. Now they wanted to choose a King and go back to war.

"Dalton, our beloved King, the legendary Red Kraken, is dead!" Declared Uthoron in a powerful speech which thundered over the hissing winds the tumult of the waves. "Dalton who burned the West and by his wise strategies allowed us to take back our liberty!" The Drowned Priest continued to list the achievements and victories of their glorious reaver-king before turning to prayers for the royal deceased. "Dalton is dead and I have no doubt he is feasting in the Halls of the Drowned God as we speak! He will be missed but what is dead may never die but rises again, harder and stronger."

"What is dead may never die but rises again, harder and stronger!" Repeated the Ironborn in a loud unanimous shout.

"Dalton is dead and left no words to tell us the captain he wanted to succeed him. The waves have called! The wrath of the Storm God has been great! A kingsmoot has been assembled! Who? Who will have the strength and the will to continue our Grand King's work?"

There was a brief moment of silence. Those captains who had something between the ears knew that declaring yourself first was a good way to kill your chances. A great reaver may be popular, but declaring first all the pretenders would be able to steal his support after that.

"I will!" Said a voice and the ranks of the captains opened to reveal Harwyn Pyke.

"Harwyn King! Harwyn King!" Sang a score of men behind him. "The Kraken's Heir and the Seastone Chair!"

They made a lot of noise for such a little group, Sargon had to admit. Leading them was Harwyn Pyke, the bastard Dalton had had with a Summer Islander whore. Like his mother, Harwyn was dark-skinned and slimly built. He marched with the arrogance of Dalton and as he closed with the Old Tide his men distributed coffers full of golden dragons, silver moons and stags, and little trinkets the bastard must have raided from House Farman's vaults.

"Ironborn!" The scream should have brought silence in the Ironborn ranks but Harwyn voice was too high-pitched and the result made several captains chuckle. "With my help, my father conquered Fair Isle and the entire coast of the Westerlands..."

The whispers only grew louder and between two waves Harwyn lost the attention of the assembly. It was not because the sentences were long or boring...it was just the bastard was trying to appropriate the exploits of his father while everyone knew pertinently how little he had played in these actions.

"...and I will rule from Pyke, like my father before me!"

"Harwyn King!" Two scores of men applauded and tried to give more baubles, but except one or two lone reavers from Pyke, the crowd stayed silent. Harwyn's face was terribly shocked...had the bastard truly thought they were going to cheer him only because he was of Dalton's seed?

"Who will claim the driftwood crown?" Asked anew Uthoron once the gold distributed by Pyke and his men had been dispersed and the Summer-skinned youngster began to sulk on the right of the Drowned Priests.

"I will!" This time it was true roar and a small cohort of Ironborn raised their axes in salute as Ralf Farwynd marched on the holy stones of Nagga's Hill. Men of the Lonely Light followed him as well as a few Great Wyk and Blacktyde veterans he had saved in the Southshield rout.

"Ironborn! Proud captains and reavers! I am Ralf Farwynd!" Many cheered as the coffers were opened to reveal sculpted pieces of silver, a few tapestries, many gold dragons and a score of jewels. "I sacked Oakenshield, defeated the six knights of Lannisport Western Gate and emptied three gold mines of the Westerlands! My three sons and I are cursed by the foolish greenlanders from the Banefort to King's Landing! Join me and we will continue our raids forever! We will reave beyond the Lonely Light at the height of a grand fleet such that the world has never seen! We will make the dragons bow in fear! We will reach Leng and Yi-Ti and bring enough treasures to buy three kingdoms!"

This was where Farwynd stopped being interesting for the listening captains. The list of possible targets...they had no common points and sometimes were separated by half a world. The Master of the Lonely Light did a good showing, but in the end the large majority of the Ironborn did little more than clap in their hands and seize the dragons distributed.

"Who will become our King?" Urothon's voice boomed.

Four other captains tried their chance after Farwynd's turn. Harras Kenning was among them, of course, and had about the same support as the Pyke bastard: men booed at each word and his proposition to make peace with the Iron Throne was answered with laughs and shouts of 'coward!". The three others brought little gold in their coffers and few plans for their kingships. The last of the four proposed to fall upon the Riverlands like the Hoares two centuries ago but this fell flat when a Goodbrother screamed the dragons had already torched everything.

"Captains arise! Is there any amongst you worthy to down the driftwood crown?"

"I will!" And this time feelings of disgust, fear and anger were shown on the Ironborn of the first ranks. Terrence Harlaw was marching through the crowd, with the grand captains of Harlaw on his heels. The armour of the Mad Butcher had been black-grey at one point, but the last years of wars and uncountable atrocities had rendered it red. The few thralls daring enough to talk murmured their master ordered them to clean only the non-red parts. The reaver wanted to look like he had just bathed in blood and honestly it looked like he had achieved his goal. Many applauded in the crewmen and the captains behind. The war had transformed some reavers into monsters and these souls recognised Harlaw the Butcher as their champion. Five or six Drowned Priests were also looking very pleased.

"Ironborn!" This was not a roar but a rasp which left the ugly lips of Terrence Harlaw. Rumour said it was the result of one of his victims having nearly strangled him to death. Impossible to verify as the Butcher was always parading in full armour. "We have destroyed the West and seeded Westeros in blood and tears!"

The Harlaw reaver smiled, the Butcher felt honestly proud at the carnages he had orchestrated. On the opposite side however, Asher Codd and several famous captains spit on the stones.

"But the work is not done. Dalton fell at the Shield Islands and the Reach has not screamed in terror at the sight of our longships! Crown me King, and I promise you Highgarden! We will take the Mander as ours and piss on the gardens of these weak roses! Their women will be our thrall wives! Their men will build for us new fleets and give us all the food we need to endure twenty winters!"

"TERRENCE KING! TERRENCE KING!" The screams came from several of the main islands but in no way from the great crews. Sargon was certainly not going to cheer either. Terrence Harlaw was indeed mad. If the full force of the Iron Fleet had failed to take the Shield Islands and defeat the Reach, they were not going to win now. Over a third of their hulls had been lost on this day and storming bigger citadels was going to be harder, not easier.

"Dalton failed but I will not! We will sink the Redwyne navy and sack their fortresses! Only the dragons could have stopped us...and the dragons are dead!"

Sargon would never know if it was coincidence or the dark humour of the Storm God, but it was the moment a blue streak emerged from the clouds and the left edge of the bay went up in flames.

* * *

 **Balon Pyke**

They were cursed. The hundreds of reavers who like him had shed Ironborn blood on Pyke preferred to pretend it had never happened but they knew the truth like him. That or they blamed the men and women they had killed. But there was no escape for what they had done. Ironborn were strictly forbidden to shed the blood of other Ironborn by the holy words of the Drowned God spoken by His priests for thousands of years. Balon knew this massacre had not pleased the Drowned God and in the middle of winter, the wrath of the Storm God would not be long in coming.

Their arrival at the kingsmoot had been the complete opposite of what the half-brother of Dalton Greyjoy had expected. Instead of being cursed and vilified by the other crews, they had been applauded. Many thrall rebellions had been suppressed with the same ruthlessness, they had been told. Insurrections and traitors were at an all time low after the lessons they had been given. Balon had then understood they were well and truly lost. They had killed their own people, and the captains loved to pretend it was just an insidious thrall plot. The more they ate and drank in the feasts on the beaches of Old Wyk, the more Balon remembered the dead eyes of the first woman killed at Lordsport and the demands of hungry people for bread and meat. A curse and a promise haunted him now.

 _You will starve soon enough_.

Before going back to the _Sea Ravager_ and sailing for the kingsmoot he had been among the rare ones to inspect the granaries of Lordsport. To his great consternation, the dead had spoken the truth. Perhaps three out of ten warehouses had already been emptied of grain, fishes, meat and they had not yet survived the first year of winter.

If the lords and great captains had been aware of this, they had not shown it at the kingsmoot. One fortnight of celebrations and mourning – in the Ironborn fashion: a lot of ale and wine to drink your sorrows and your joys. Then the moment awaited and dreaded came. Thousands of reavers and captains assembled before the marches of the Grey King, the entire preaching choir of the Drowned Priests and the bones of Nagga. And one by one the captains rose to claim the driftwood crown. Not a word was said to tell how they were going to eat when their stomachs growled and the storms brought more rain and cold. Well, except Terrence Harlaw but Balon was not going to follow someone who thought raping little boys was a fun deed.

"Only the dragons could have stopped us...and the dragons are dead!"

In the hours after this sentence, Balon would always remember it and how it had seemed to tempt fate. The Ironborn had had no news of dragons, the rumours and ravens flying to Pyke and the longships were moons-old and completely irrelevant by the time they had come to their ears. Some soldiers and reavers had pretended they had had messages affirming all the Targaryen and their mounts were dead. Several crewmen had told the exact opposite. But there had been no way to confirm them, short of going to King's Landing – and it was not a small journey with the war raging everywhere.

All he knew that when moments later a horrible roar had resonated over the bay, there was a blue shadow in the sky and the left part of the bay where the Goodbrother longships had been concentrated was burning in an unnatural fire.

"Dragon!" Shouted someone and it was immediately complete panic. The Ironborn had been pressed against each other like a bank of sardine and when one started to run, it was complete chaos. Many men were trampled in the first outburst while other fell under the not-so ceremonial axes and swords of warriors trying to disperse the crowd.

"Dragon! To the ships!" A cry repeated everywhere all over Nagga's Cradle. Balon did not run. He saw the mass of reavers, servants, guards and lords run to their ships...and he saw they were not going to make it. The dragon – a blue beast which looked bigger than an average longship – roared and exhaled again a wide burst of dragonfire. The result was hellish and this time the master of the beast had not launched his mount on a single point. No, methodically and patiently, the inferno targeted the left section of the bay, burning hundreds of ships and perhaps thousands of men. Wood, ropes, turpentine, sails, steel, supplies, tents, barrels...everything went in flame. This was not an attack towards the Ironborn. No, the dragon was aiming at the ships.

 _Oh, by the Drowned God. He wants us all parked like sheep to the slaughterhouse_.

And the blue dragon began to do exactly that. A few Ironborn crews had managed to reach their longships but the monster over their heads did not give them the time to arm the light scorpions. One pass and dozens of warriors who had sailed from Tyrosh to Pyke were screaming torches. The northern wind was violent and consuming the Goodbrother and Volmark longships who had escaped the disaster.

 _It is our damnation_.

The waters of the bay, so calm in the last days boiled under the implacable flames. A fog of steam and smoke was rising over the carnage but it was not stopping the dragon. Nothing was stopping the beast. In the distance, Balon heard the orders bellowed by Asher Codd. The Half-Giant had rallied his men under a large kraken banner and was giving back their courage.

"Archers take position!"

Two scores of men seized arrows and prepared their longbows, waiting for the dragon to come at them. But the blue streak was not in the least interested in them. The dragon and its master were only thinking about the longships...and it was incredibly fast. For the first time he thought about this, Balon recognised the greatest strength of a dragon was not its destructive breath but the incredible mobility afforded by its wings. The dragon attacked anew, annihilating the prizes and longships of House Wynch and Harlaw. In the wind a black flag was carried away, half-destroyed in dragonfire.

"Abandon the ships!"

"To the ships of the right! They're still able to sail!"

"Abandon the ships!"

"What is dead may never die!"

"We need archers here!"

Men begged for death or salvation. Plenty jumped from the masts and the bridges, seeking salvation in the cold depths and discovering too late dragonfire burned very well over and in the water. Looking back at Nagga's Hill, Balon noticed nearly every Drowned Priest had fled like cowards. Big loud mouths but when it came to a real fight, these Priests did not have much in the stomach.

"Retreat! We must retreat!"

One of the greatest longships left to the Iron Fleet rammed two smaller embarkations in its haste to reach the shore. It was not fast enough. A new infernal breath and the banners of House Shawney were destroyed along with at least four scores of reavers.

"The fleet is lost!" The young Ironborn screamed. "We must go inland and man the forts!" But no one listened to him save an old grizzled Drowned Priest five feet on his left.

The Ironborn longships went in flames by entire squadrons. Small or big, swift or cumbersome, big masts or hundreds of oars, it was of no importance. Every Ironborn knew as soon as they went to the sea that fire was one of their greatest enemies. But the flames of the dragon were an entirely different danger. An uncontrolled fire could devour a longship in three rapid turn of hourglasses. A gust of dragonfire before his eyes was torching a score of longships in less time it took to say it.

"Shoot these arrows! Kill the dragon!"

At last the Ironborn warriors counter-attacked. With the rapidity of men who knew their failure meant instant deaths, about three groups of archers had been put into position. They had also managed to drag two light scorpions somehow.

"For the Drowned God and for the Kingsmoot!" The battle-cry went loud and high in the middle of the inferno. Hundreds of arrows and two scorpion bolts were launched to slam in the dragon...which avoided them all with a stunning twirl of the winds.

"This is magnificent...but this is not war." The Drowned Priest voice was calm and posed. For a moment, Balon wanted to ask him how he could remain so calm watching the entire Ironborn fleet be incinerated like that. A new series of screams redirected his attention on the battlefield. The Greyjoy remnants had avoided the initial onslaught due to their location on the right-centre of Nagga's Cradle but this time their luck ran out. In a storm of flames, ten or twelve hulls disappeared in the dragonfire.

The archers had not stopped firing after their first arrow wave but their efforts wielded nothing. The dragon was playing with them and the smoke obscured everything. The light of the day should have provided plenty of opportunities to shoot at the best but now the bay was a spectacle worthy of the Long Night. The water was boiling under the dragonfire. The stones, grey and dark, were liquefying under the unnatural warmth. The winds of winter were dispersing the burning cinders, creating more fires and dooming untouched longships. Scores of longships were collapsing under their own weight, breaking in two or sinking after their masts and the entire structure was crippled by the relentless dragonfire. Men were screaming in agony on their ships, on the shores and in the water.

"They should have run."

The blue monster charged out of the cloud of ashes and steam and the archers had no time to evade this new course. The dragonfire came out like a torrent and when the dragon rose in the air, there was nothing left living. If Asher Codd or any of his men had survived this inferno, there was no sign it.

There was nothing to save. Perhaps the longships in the other bays had been left untouched but Nagga's Cradle and the majority of the kingsmoot were gone. And all this slaughter had been done by a single dragon.

One beast had annihilated an entire fleet.

 _We haven't been so decisively defeated since the Conqueror burned Harrenhal_.

They had stood no chance against House Targaryen, truly. What could you do against such monsters when you had none on your side? Looking at several small lines of servants fleeing towards the heights, Balon was startled when the Drowned Priest put in his hands a smelly object without a warning.

An instant later he paled when he saw the object. It was a driftwood crown.

"The Ironborn will need someone with wisdom in the days to come, Balon Greyjoy." Told him the Drowned Priest with a grave expression.

"I am...not a Greyjoy. I am a Pyke. Dalton never legitimised me."

The Priest chuckled in a tone where there was no joy.

"You are an Ironborn and the Ironborn will need someone to survive the days to come. Kill the Pyke and be reborn as a Greyjoy. What is dead may never die."

Under the burning sky, uncountable ravens began to descend on the thousands of corpses.

"But rise again, harder and stronger."


	13. A new Kingdom

**Chapter 13**

 **A new Kingdom**

 **Lord Cregan Stark**

The visages of Lord Benjicot Blackwood and his aunt Lady Alysanne were harbouring large smiles as they were introduced in the improvised Council room. Seeing the great tapestries of House Bracken replaced on every wall of Stone Hedge was generating plenty of good humour in the hearts of their hereditary rivals.

This was far from the only change happening in Stone Hedge's inner walls of course. The furniture, the banners, the accommodations and the defences, many dispositions were modified or outright ignored to signify the change of allegiance. Stone Hedge did not belong to the Brackens anymore, if the banner of the three-headed dragon floating over the dungeon did not make it clear to any food convoy and knight patrol passing by.

The whispers of conversation died down as they passed the great door, with no one missing the point the defiant horse knocker had been replaced by a finely carved dragon.

"Your Grace," said Cregan, bowing down before Queen Baela and the rest of the group he was leading bent the knee after him.

"Rise, my Lords and Ladies," the answer arrived a couple of heartbeats later. Cregan stood up, watching rapidly the new Council room and inwardly smiling at the differences between the original meeting chambers of King's Landing. Of course, Cregan himself had never had the honour and the opportunity to be invited to these walls, but there were several Southern Lords who had, and he had talked with a few.

According to them, King Viserys the First of the Name – widely nicknamed 'the Befuddled', the 'Twice-Wrong' and 'the Incapable' in the corridors of several Riverlands castles – had bought a massive wooden table decorated with gold and silver which had cost at the very least the ransom of a Prince. Seats ordered from Myr artisans, tapestries from Tyrosh, crystal candelabra from Volantis and carpets from Master Guildsmen had completed the picture. It went without saying there had also been the usual crystal glasses to serve the Arbor wine, the excellent food prepared by some of the finest cooks of the capital and several other measures to satisfy the well-being of the councillors. In short, Viserys the First's Council had thanks to the Hightowers and all the Southrons crowding the royal court become the epitome of decadence and frivolous pleasures.

The place they were in was as different from it as summer is from winter. A large tapestry illustrating a tourney organised by the Conciliator was decorating the wall with no opening to the outside and a simple table of black wood covered by a well-detailed map was in the middle. In the background, a warm fire was burning in the chimney. There was only one unoccupied seat next to the flames, deliberately implying the Council was going to happen with everyone standing on both legs. This was the sum of the ornamentation meeting their eyes. Evidently, the typical Riverlands tables and other accommodations Lord Bracken had used to entertain his desk had not been judged worthy of Queen Baela. This was a promising sign, though the Lord of Winterfell had to keep a prudent attitude. How long these modest quarters would last once the kingdom was no longer bankrupt and their young liege had some of her possessions arrive from the Vale remained to be seen.

"Since everyone is here, we can begin." Affirmed the Black Queen with a rapidity and a lack of pompous ceremony which would have horrified the courtiers having dominated the court before the civil war. This morning the young dragonlady of House Targaryen had chosen to wear a nice purple dress and a new crown with a diamond above her forehead. "First on the order of the day are the Riverlands. Lord Tully?"

Lord Kermit advanced three steps before bowing before their liege. His recent captivity in the Green prisons had left quite a few scars on his determined visage and his body was trembling in exhaustion. Not surprising, the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands had been liberated less than a fortnight ago and had arrived in the middle of the snowfalls yesterday.

"Your Grace, let me thank you for my liberation," declared the Lord of Riverrun, renewing his allegiance and beginning the little exchange that renewed his allegiance to the cause of the Black Dragon. These were pretty words, but they had a layer of sincerity this time. Lord Kermit's ransom had not been cheap: two Reach Lords, two Stormlords and five knights had been released from the cells of the Black Crown to ensure his freedom. The Black Cause had the means to pay; after all they had collected over three scores of highborn prisoners at Bosworth Bridge alone and many Westerners were also awaiting their fate in many dungeons across the realm. No, the ability had been there. But there had been cousins of lesser branches with their eyes fixed on Riverrun and Kermit's behaviour thorough this war had given him uncountable enemies in the ranks of his allies.

Once the salutations and congratulations were over, the rider of Moondancer addressed her bannersmen again.

"The vacant holdings of the Riverlands must be replaced." The men and the women summoned took position around the table under the vigilant eyes of four knights of the Kingsguards, some badly dissimulating the excitation in their eyes. Cregan was tempted to roll his eyes. They had behaved the same way three days before for the Vale lands, although truly there had been far less holes to fill. The traitor lords and knights had been executed and replayed by several cousins of assured loyalty. Hopefully, the new Lords Corbray, Lynderly and some of their friends would be more dedicated to wage war for the Black Crown in the decades to come. The continental map on the table was replaced by an erudite in grey robes –albeit one without the maester chains – and a very detailed map of the Riverlands bearing the sigil of House Bracken took its place. "Six Noble Houses and eight Masterly Houses have perished in the last four years and eighty-three knighthoods left no living heirs. These losses are terrible, but we can only mourn them and pray to the Gods Old and New that their murderers are burning in the Seven Hells for all eternity."

Given how the main perpetrator was Aemond the Kinslayer, this was a very dramatic affirmation to tell in front of your own Royal Council. The Queen didn't continue, waiting for one of her bannersmen to intervene. After an instant, it was Lady Alysanne Blackwood who spoke. This day the mistress of the Black archers was a lovely vision in her black dress and Cregan had to force his vision away from her least he concentrated directly on her breasts rather than her comments.

"The fate of the lands formerly two Traitor Houses should also be decided, your Grace," told the aunt of the current Lord Blackwood in a melodious voice. No name was spoken, but every person knew it could only refer to the Brackens and the Blackwoods.

Baela Targaryen made a small smile before revealing her thoughts, which were some way between suggestions and royal demands.

"Since we have no chance to take King's Landing in a moon or two, I intend to use Stone Edge as the temporary capital of the legitimate Seven Kingdoms." Many heads nodded as this decision was only confirming the actions taken in the last moon. "The lands east of Stone Hedge which were unjustly given to House Bracken will be returned to House Blackwood." The two members of said House present did not cheer widely, but their smiles and expressions of joy spoke for themselves. The pale fingers of the Queen touched the map in several points of the central Riverlands, showing whose parts would be sworn to Raventree Hall. "The northern domain of House Strong will be divided between House Roote and House Darry." This time Lord Darry was far less discreet and cheered in his large brown beard. It was the first time his visage harboured a smile after his father's death from the wounds he had taken at Bosworth Bridge. Still, Cregan remarked that Lady Vypren and Lord Kermit had noticed the boot-shaped amount of lands remaining to be distributed.

"The other titles, castles and possessions of the houses having failed in their duty to defend their Queen will be confiscated and will form the new royal demesne of the kingdom."

The Lord of Riverrun did not look too pleased by it. Cregan understood it. In a single strike, the Black Queen had just placed under her rule some very fertile and rich lands bordering the Red Fork and the God's Eye. And the amount of loss taxes that would be removed from his purse would not be inconsequential either.

"In return, the Crown will place the Noble House of Staunton under the authority of Riverrun. Cracklaw Point, Claw Isle and Driftmark will stay under royal governance and form the new Eastern Marches."

Lord Tully's belligerent face disappeared, his mood turning to contemplative. Cregan had to give it to their young Queen, it was a good move. House Staunton's lands would extend the reach of the Riverlands while remaining less rich and prosperous than the confiscated villages and fields. Yes, the pointed questions the purple-dressed dragonlady had asked to her advisors in the last days were not just by sheer curiosity.

"Ser Allyn Melcolm will be named as the new Crown Castellan of Harrenhal. The fortress is ruined, probably cursed and completely indefensible with the forces we have left but Lord Bolton reports have insisted on the point a smaller castle could still be useful to defend the God's Eye. And we can always use the surplus stones to guard our frontiers with new holdfasts."

This last declaration did not receive a large support but nobody opened his mouth to naysay the point just raised. Harrenhal was a ruin thanks to the pillages, raiding, capture and recapture of the Dance, this was not a point the Lords of the Rivers and the Trident could disagree with. And with their lands ravaged, it would be a long time when they would have the means and the gold dragons to rebuild this black monstrosity.

By contrast, the elevations of the new Lords such as Lord Keath, Lord Ryger, Lord Lychester, Lord Mallister and Lord Frey were quick and did not cause any surprise. There were a few whispers when House Charlton became on parchment subordinated to the Twins but the reality was that said House had lost almost all its men, gold and lands at war or in a storm of dragonfire. The new Lord Charlton in the end was a cousin of dubious birth and as a consequence House Charlton was lowered to a Masterly rank. Ultimately, the Noble Houses north of the Blue Fork were Mallister, Frey, Ryger, Shawney and a new House which had distinguished in the last battles, House Terrick.

Surrounding the Trident there was not a lot of debate. Vypren, Roote, Darry, Hawick and Mooton would continue their rule over the frequently flooded plains. These Houses had had all survivors of the main lines or cadet lines which could take the burden of their predecessors. On the south-west of the Riverlands, it was a far more complicated affair.

"The Wayfarer's Fort and the approaches of the Western passes belonged to House Wayfarer. They were our kin and should go to House Piper!" This very loud proposal from Lord Piper had opened the verbal hostilities. Cregan had no stake in the quarrel and didn't intervene, but apparently plenty of the local lords had no intention to let the Pipers create a grand domain covering the western quarter of the Riverlands.

"Kin?" scoffed Lord Darry. "Next time, you will tell us you were best friends! Is it why Lord Wayfarer threw his cup in your face at the last tourney of Atranta?"

There were many chuckles at this, from the Riverlords as well as the Valemen and the Northerners. Piper's face turned red of anger.

"I have the best claim..."

"And may the Seven help us..." whispered in an amused smirk Lady Sabitha Frey born Vypren.

The next turns of hourglasses were excellent to show everyone how quarrelsome the Riverlords could be. Insults flew everywhere, and if Queen Baela had not been present, the dispute could have unravelled and turned into a fist fight. Lord Kermit's control of his bannersmen appeared to have considerably diminished with his captivity. When he would be old and senile, the Lord of Winterfell would be able to tell his grandchildren how his fellow Lord Paramount had replied to a Piper tirade by:

"Your sheep will not be welcome on Tully lands!" It was like the livestock was going to suddenly gain enough intelligence to recognise the limits of a Noble House's pasture...

"I will build a barrage on the Red Fork to make sure no trout will ever be fished at Riverrun!" Was the bitter retort pronounced by his interlocutor.

The 'Wayfarer inheritance' continued to poison the talks for the rest of the conference. It was unfortunate...for the Riverlords. They were so busy shouting at each other that men like Cregan, Lord or Lord Tollett who had no reason to shout endlessly managed to get what they wanted.

For Cregan personally, it was the opportunity to get rid of those idiots pretending to have killed Lord Borros Baratheon. It had been a good idea on the field of battle, but now scores of men were pretending to be the one having done the deed. Thanks to the Old Gods, he was able to get rid of them by giving a few knighthoods and dispersing them in the Southern Lordships of the Riverlands.

"The new southern border will be defended from west to east by the Houses of Piper, Perryn, Vance of Atranta, Wayn, Butterwell, Mooton and Staunton." This was in the end the result of this long and difficult negotiation proclaimed by the descendant of the Conqueror. "Houses Smallwood and Terrick are elevated to the status of Noble Houses. Maidenpool and Saltpans will be given Royal Charters to become cities in their own right. Are they any points left to discuss?"

The latter point was sure to be particularly hated by the merchants of King's Landing and the rest of Blackwater Bay, the Stark Hand reflected. As the capital had developed after the Conquest, King's Landing had become the centre of Westerosi trade while several lesser harbours were abandoned or saw their activity decrease. But with two new cities, the dreadful state of King's Landing and a kingdom cut in half, it was entirely likely the trade roads bypassed in the last decades could be reopened. Yes, it was definitely interesting. Cregan would have to speak to the Manderly contingent as soon as this debate was over...

"The Wayfarer lands, your Grace..."

For the first time in the entire session, annoyance was seen in the beautiful purple eyes. Lord Piper, who had just reminded the Queen of this painful point, had the dubious pleasure of receiving the royal glare straight on and took a cowed expression.

"I have heard the arguments. House Piper, House Deddings and House Vance have all their own claims, is it right?"

"Yes, your Grace," confirmed Lady Sabitha. "But the last words of Lord Wayfarer are not known to us and the Lannister host was a bit too efficient at exterminating the second and third branches of Wayfarer..."

"In this case, the Lordship will go to Ser Jonos Vance," decided the silver-haired Queen, calling the name of a cousin of the Lord of Atranta. "He has captured four Western Lords in the Battle-by-the-Lakeshore, no?"

"He has," agreed Lord Piper with what was evidently bad grace. "But-"

"The Crown will make a condition of his ascension for Lord Vance of the Wayfarer lands to marry either a daughter of House Piper or Deddings."

This shut definitely the mouth of the feuding Riverlords. In front of him, Lord Tollett was desperately trying not to chuckle at the looks of intimidation the Lords of the Trident and the Forks were sending each other. This was going to be a marriage war, of this there was no doubt.

But after Queen Baela imperious decision, the map of the Riverlands and its new lordships was withdrawn and replaced by one infamous for any highborn Lord or Lady governing lands bordering the Sunset Sea. The precision for this map was somewhat lacking contrary to the previous one. Maesters and man with drawing skills had never been welcomed with open arms to the Iron Islands and the reaver captains guarded jealously what little written knowledge they had stolen or 'convinced' enemy captains to part with.

"What is the situation in the den of pirates?" asked Lord Eon Tollett. An outside observer might be surprised by the condemnation in the Valeman's tone for a force which had previously fought for the Black Dragon, but there was no shout to protest how unfair these words were.

The end of the war between Greens and Blacks allowed the whispers of their agents to come back far faster than they had during the bloodshed and the ugliness of what the Ironborn had done was painting a spectacle of massacre and desolation. If Vhagar and Aemond would remain for decades to come the butchers of the Rivers, then Dalton the Red Kraken had grabbed the title of Despoiler of the West with ease.

"Chaos," affirmed the Frey Lady, who was directing the efforts of their spies though she had asked for a title far more impressive than 'Mistress of Whisperers'. "The rumours of King Daeron the Green burning the entire remaining fleet at Old Pyke weren't just rumours it seems. The Ironborn had the great idea to organise one of their king's elections, they call it a 'kingsmoot', in the middle of an undefended bay." The smirk on Lady Sabitha's lips made clear how stupid she considered the Ironborn for forgetting the fact they were at war. "What the Blue Queen did not burn, the Arbor fleet massacred. The surviving pirates have retreated to their strongholds but they have lost Old Wyk for sure and nine out of ten of their Lords and strongest captains."

This was a dreadful tapestry. One the Ironborn really deserved for all their atrocities. This was good news for the North of course: as more and more Ironborn fell under the Reachers and the Westerners blades, there would be far less raiders and pirates on his coast the next spring.

"Should we not send a force to capture a few islands before the Greens kill every Ironborn on these damned islands?"

The question had been posed by Lord Tully, and the tone employed suggested this was not reason which animated the red-haired Lord but vengeance for past wrongs. As it was him who had proposed the current strategy, Cregan answered without giving the time for anyone to speak.

"The only fleet we have available to attack the Iron Islands at present is the Mallister fleet, Lord Tully. I'm certainly not going to send ravens to the Mormont, Glover, Dustin and Flint ships on the western coast to sail in the middle of the winter storms!" The men and women in charge of the defences of the western coast would not obey anyway. In winter, Northern ships stayed very close to the coast. It was a simple question of survival and despite this many hulls were still lost. "And sending the ships of the Cape of Eagles would leave our entire flank undefended if the Greens tried to sail into Ironman's Bay tomorrow."

"I think we could take them." It was really funny how Lord Piper could support Lord Tully's position as long as it was a command to destroy the ravagers who had conquered the Riverlands nearly a century and a half ago.

"We would slaughter them." Agreed Lady Blackwood and Kermit's smile was more expressive until her next words. "But we would not be able to feed our own troops there. It is already difficult to pay the captains of the Narrow Sea and transport the supplies from Maidenpool and Gulltown to the villages and holdfasts which need it. The merchants and small carracks we have available are too small to transport the food of a small army."

"The Greens are in the same position as ours or worse." It was best to crush the whole idea in the cradle. As the Lord Paramount contributing the greatest amount of infantry on the field, Cregan knew whose forces would be ordered to storm the Ironborn crippled defences. In the middle of winter. Against an opponent who often had proven in the last centuries they didn't lack fanaticism when the hour came to die for their Drowned God. "The Westerlands have gold left, but almost no food to give for a long campaign. The Redwyne Navy is too far from its own bases and with winter conditions becoming hellish, they will have to return back to the Reach soon."

"Daeron has his dragon."

"A dragon and his rider can't occupy the Iron Islands by themselves. And a dragon needs to be sleep and be fed too." The flying reptiles' strengths to destroy everything had been made clear in this civil war, but so had been their weaknesses. The Lord Paramount of the North contemplated the Council and the rest of the Lords assembled in the small room. "No, my Ladies and Lords. The Greens can't conquer the Ironborn until next spring. And when the good days will return, our ships and armies will be in a better position than theirs to act."

There was a rumble coming from several Riverlords of course but the rest of the assembly showed diverse manners of relief. As they should, really. Once you had seen the mountain of corpses from Bosworth Bridge, you understood the glory of war as it was sung by the bards had never existed. Westeros and the two Kingdoms had been bled deeply by this war. They really didn't a winter campaign to make things worse.

"I find the arguments of my Hand pertinent." Queen Baela had waited the debate to quiet down before speaking her mind. "Tessarion and the Arbor fleet have broken the Ironborn and they will be no great threat for this winter. We will maintain agents on the Isles to be warned of new raids but it is my will to wait until spring. My Moondancer will be large enough by then to deal with the last longships and their forts." Low voices of assent were heard and Lord Tully and his bannersmen were satisfied...for now. It was at this moment Lord Mollen entered the room and at the invitation of the Queen hurriedly whispered something in her ear.

This time it was not annoyance, rage, joy or disgust which was seen on the traits of the Valyrian heiress but more a feeling of curiosity.

"This Council is adjourned. We will speak of the rest of the concerns next dawn."

At first, the Lord of Winterfell thought little of it as the flow of Lords and Ladies left the room and poured towards the dining hall. If there was a certainty after these Council meetings, it was your need for a meal, a drink and a seat. And not in this particular order, mind you.

But as he gently presented his arm to the lovely Lady Blackwood and they began their slow walk towards rest and warmth, a few squires were removing the saddles of exhausted horses in the courtyard and a column of men were directed inside. In other circumstances, Cregan would have thought nothing of it but the lone banner half-covered in snow was recognisable by every Northman.

Black on black, the Night's Watch black brothers had come to Stone Hedge.

* * *

 **King Daeron Targaryen**

According to the poor men and women they had rescued from the reavers, this place had been named the King's Rock. There was apparently nothing to justify this. It was a black rock, ugly and battered by the waves and the cold winds. But according to the old tales, it was one of the many sites the Conqueror had landed Balerion during the Conquest. It was the landscape where the rider of the Black Dread had received the oath of allegiance from the Lord of Harlaw and his Great Captains.

In different kingdoms, such places had seen taverns, inns and septs be elevated to remember the terrifying dragon and its royal master. But these were the Iron Islands. The Faith never remained for long on these shores and the inhabitants weren't willing to give respect to anyone but their murderous brothers. Yes, the Conqueror had forced them to bend the knee but unlike the rest of the Seven Kingdoms these oaths had been quick to be discarded every time the iron fist of the Crown could not reach them. Thus what Daeron saw had to be the same lands, rocks and sea the first King of Westeros had watched over a hundred years ago.

Aegon had tried appeasement and counted on the scary presence of the dragons to enforce peace. Thanks to Rhaenyra's idiocy and the Ironborn very nature, all the peace efforts were ruined. Maybe if he had Seven Kingdoms under his rule and a long summer ahead of him, the relative peaceful combination of gold tithes, hostages and melting the swords could have been used once more.

But this was winter and the time of frivolities was long past. What he had ordered disgusted him, but the rider of Tessarion and leader of the Green forces knew he had never had the choice. Not if he wanted to have a western coast protected from the unending pillages of the reavers and their allies for several years.

"Your Grace, your orders have been executed," declared formally Lord Alan Redwyne, High Admiral of the Fleet. If the grey-bearded sailor had felt any reluctance to accomplish Daeron's command, there was no sign of it on his aged visage. "All the food reserves we could find have been confiscated. All the Westerosi and Essossi the Red Kraken and his reavers took as spoils of war are on their way back home. The Ironborn women which are under forty name days have been placed on our transports for Lannisport and Oldtown."

The young Targaryen King nodded darkly. Just because they had completely sunk the Iron Fleet at Old Wyk did not mean they could entirely conquer the Iron Islands. After the inferno of dragonfire he had unleashed on their sacred island, the Ironborn had finally realised adopting the same strategy was going to result in their doom. So now at the first sign of a blue wing, the courageous captains and warriors left abandoned their castles and longships to hide in the dreary caverns and other asperities of the harsh mountains.

Pursuing them had been difficult and scores of men had died – ambushed by the retreating Ironborn or killed by the cold, the rock avalanches and the fury of the elements. If they had had a proper army and it was spring, Daeron would have tried occupying these ugly pieces of rocks. These were many 'ifs'. The sailors of the Redwyne Navy were few in numbers and they were needed to manoeuvre the transports and the warships. Of the once mighty armies of the Westerlands, Lady Lannister had mere hundreds left to give and two out of three were five years younger than him.

"The men are awaiting their orders, your Grace," said tranquilly Captain Edric Lowther.

 _May the Gods Old and New forgive me_.

He was well aware the Ironborn would damn for untold generations after the carnage he had done. The butchery of their 'kingsmoot' had been bad enough. The sacks of Old Wyk and Pyke had made the tally corpses rise to awful numbers.

There was no choice. They couldn't leave an 'Iron Kingdom' in their back for the next campaigning seasons, not with the Blacks to their north ready to exploit any weakness...

Pyke was the armoury of the Drowned God, Great Wyk was its mines, Saltcliffe was the salt and Old Wyk was the religious centre.

But Harlaw was the granary. Destroy it, and the Iron Islands were going to die. The Green King drew Blackfyre from its scabbard, the antique Valyrian sword looking like a shard of darkness in the grey light of winter.

"We can begin then. Let Harlaw burn."

"LET HARLAW BURN!" screamed a young Crakehall knight, who had lost all his family in one of the raids.

The war-cry was shouted over and by over by hundreds of angry throats and then the first torch was thrown in one of the wood piles the soldiers had slowly gathered in the last days. Harlaw had more trees than the rest of the Iron Islands but it didn't mean it was growing anywhere.

Bathed in oil, the wood burst in flames rapidly and the Drowned Priest which had been tied to the pole on top of it continued his imprecations, begging his God to save him. The prayers did not appear to provide any miracles this day. The torches flew and the nineteen other Drowned Priests tied on the other execution poles were soon engulfed in flames. Their shrieks mounted rapidly in the air and the disgusting odour of roasted human meat was smelled.

"BURN HARLAW! BURN THE IRON ISLANDS!"

The columns of men raced in the hinterlands, steel in one hand and fire in the other, the funeral pyre of the Drowned Priests in their back.

"How many of their so-called 'Kings remain at large?" He asked to Lord Alan Redwyne, sick in advance of what the bloodbath the warriors were doing in his name. Already, trails of smokes were seen mounting over the first series of cliffs blocking him the view.

"Scores." replied with a dark grimace the High Admiral. "Since we interrupted them before they crowned a King, these damned Priests have spread the word it is the will of the Drowned God that the man who will throw us back to the sea will be the new King."

This sounded indeed like the nonsense these iron-skulled fanatics liked to sprout. Daeron did not know how the idiots were going to explain their departure in a few days...he almost regretted not being here to listen to their explanations. How the fleet and the dragon they feared were gone...along with their women and their supplies.

It was cruel and amusing at the same time, but the Ironborn had really brought it upon themselves by unleashing seas of blood from the Banefort to the Shield Islands.

"And now their time of reaving is over..."

Daeron mounted Tessarion and flew eastwards, ready to add dragonfire to the torment of Harlaw.

* * *

 **Prince Qoren Martell**

Qoren felt his arms but moving them was becoming harder. Sweat was pearling on his forehead. His legs were trembling and his breath was so loud and dolorous it was almost a cough.

It was a new morning and for the first time of the new day he asked himself whether these were the symptoms of old age or something far more sinister. The Prince of Dorne was not a young man, as the next moon would see him celebrate his two and sixty name day. Had he been able to sleep soundly at night rest after the main meals of the day and travel short distances, maybe his old bones wouldn't ache too much.

But his unruly bannersmen didn't give him time to rest. Every fortnight there was an old feud between two Houses, and it was rare blood hadn't been shed when he arrived to enforce the peace. Qoren didn't know if one of their assassins had poisoned him, but these hot-blooded bannersmen for sure poisoned his days. The streets of Sunspear and Planky Town were dens of discontent and agitation.

Whether he liked it or not, the calls to war were incredibly popular. Killing a group of treacherous nobles out of sight had done nothing to calm the bloodlust of the Dornish people.

Sometimes Qoren wondered if the venom of the Dornish snakes had destroyed at birth the intelligence of his smallfolk and his bannersmen. Replacing his night clothes by a light-orange tunic, he ordered his servant to search him more water. The pain in his head was growing worse. The ache in his chest was not getting better. Poison or age? Poison and age? How could he know? When the cold water arrived in his throat, all he felt for an instant was relief and pleasure. It didn't last. He had to sit on the chair behind his great desk.

He had to last a bit longer. Aliandra wasn't ready to rule Dorne and the Ladies and Lords conspired to begin a war they couldn't win. They believed the deaths of so many dragons and the Seven Kingdoms being divided in two gave them a chance to invade the Marches and win. And to be fair, Qoren acknowledged in his thoughts they were right. They had a chance.

It didn't mean it was a good one. For all the defiance and bravery shown in the war against the Conqueror, Dorne had paid a terrible price in blood and lands. Their armies were smaller, many marketplaces and trade outposts had been abandoned to the desert winds. Westeros was weak, weakened by years of warfare. But the Greens held three of the ancient kingdoms. Dorne was alone, and its armies were never able to counter the numbers of the fully mustered Stormlands. With dragon to support these armies, it could only end one way.

The Prince of Dorne closed his eyes. Warm. He was sweating. He tried to reopen his eyes but he was getting weaker. He was trying to speak but his mouth wasn't opening. There were voices in the distance but he wasn't able to hear what they were saying. Qoren let the darkness claim him.


	14. A Hope of Spring

**Chapter 14**

 **A Hope of Spring**

 **Princess Aliandra Martell**

The funeral of her father was not a joyous affair. It wasn't raining, but the weather was far colder than any Dornish men and women remembered in their memories. For the first time in years, the warm clothes which were used to travel at night in the dunes were suddenly popular at Sunspear.

Aliandra would have loved to say the smallfolk and her bannersmen had come by the thousands to give a last farewell to the man who was their Prince. Alas, she couldn't. The crowd in front of the Old Palace and in the narrow streets of Sunspear was sparse. Hundreds of men and women had come out this day but to purchase cloaks, boots and furred tunics. The merchants looked happy they had a day where their customers had a reason to go outside in the cold. The inhabitants of the Shadow City did not look especially sorry to buy ale and other beverages and go back home to get drunk. Few of her subjects showed faces of mourning. A good third of the Noble Houses had deliberately chosen to slow their ride to the capital of Dorne rather attending the ceremony proclaiming their Prince had left this world forever. They would come here to swear her fealty but did not intend to present their respects to their deceased liege.

There were already some of her father's advisors demanding these traitorous Lords and Knights were arrested the instant they bent the knee in front of her. Aliandra had chosen to dismiss these empty-headed skulls out of her council. Prince Qoren Martell had not been beloved by his subjects. If she began her reign by hunting and imprisoning all the highborn and lowborn enemies her father had made these last years, there would be no more gold in the treasury next year and she would be forced to kill half of Dorne.

By the waters of Greenblood, she didn't know if she had really liked her genitor. Prince Qoren had sent her to Salt Shore the moment she had been able to walk and with her mother dead one year after her birth trying to give her a little brother, there had been no one to protest. To this day, she didn't know why and Prince Qoren had taken this secret with him to the grave. Was it because her father could not see her without being reminded her mother or was she simply inconvenient for his projects and it was best to let her mother's family raise her?

She had learned a lot of things in this castle tempered by the sprays of the Summer Sea. Aliandra had been offered lessons with the best tutors, how to wield a spear in the House of the red cockatrice and the teachings of the nomadic travellers making the dunes their home. But her father there had been her maternal uncle, Lord Manfrey Gargalen, not 'the old spider of Sunspear' like the denizens of the Dornish shores enjoyed calling him.

And when she had come back at the capital at the age of ten, it had been to meet an old man who was trying to avoid war and bloodshed while the rest of the continent burned in the fires of the dragons. She had been impressed by Prince Qoren's tenacity when he refused to call his banners and told its preference of scorpion beds before a dragon dance.

His bannersmen however had really not liked his methods. Taxes, executions in the desert and long exiles had been ordered by the Prince of Dorne against the Noble Houses. But all he had achieved was making him hated. Dornish were passionate people and they hadn't seen this cold and calculating man as one of their own. Tensions had been increasing and in certain oasis blood had been shed between the local tribes and the tax collectors of the Princedom.

According to her uncle, the only choice Prince Qoren had left her was either a war against the divided Targaryen realm to her north or a civil war in Dorne itself.

"A dark day," she commented to her uncle and his sworn spears when they left the holy grounds of the sept behind, following the coffin of the defunct Prince. "How long do you think I have, Uncle?"

The Lord of Salt Shore did not answer for a few heartbeats as they passed by the upper Wind Wall and began their descent in the tortuous streets of Sunspear.

"The Lords will wait the end of winter and no longer than that," answered Lord Manfrey, throwing a concerned look at the angry faces booing and shouting when they saw the men and women accompanying the previous Prince of Dorne to his last rest. "They want war and they won't tolerate your excuses for long."

"If they want war that badly, do they have a proper and reliable way to kill dragons?" asked sarcastically the new Princess of Dorne. "Because the moment war is declared, King Daeron can ride upon his beast and torch Sunspear in dragonfire."

"The new Lord Uller is convinced that proper ambushes with scorpions and archers will kill the flying beast."

That did not exactly fill Aliandra with confidence. She had met the 'Lord Uller' one year ago in the Sand Ship, a boy with two more name days than her busy ogling female servants and confident that Dorne would emerge victorious no matter what happened.

How quick were the Uller to forgive that in the last two centuries, it was House Martell which loaned them twice coffers of gold, silver and gemstones to rebuild their castle of Hellholt to its former glory. Killing Meraxes in the previous war against the dragonlords had given them a lot of prestige...and three-fourths of their arable lands had been devastated by the flames of the Black Dread in revenge. Where before the fields along the Brimstone could feed thousands of people, now they had to buy food elsewhere to survive. The Uller lands had been made infertile for centuries and in her mind, this was a poor price for the death of a single dragonrider. The Ullers had now the unforgivable sin of being poor, and the merchant caravans of the east avoided their den of madness.

"If we listened to Lord Uller, the armies would be marching right now in the Prince's Pass...never mind the snow has blocked everything in the Marches. Lord Yronwood and every castle of importance have sent ravens to me telling how difficult it is for scouts to travel to Nightsong and Blackhaven. But no, Wyl and Hellholt are convinced our spears will suddenly grow wings and we will fly over the mountains like prey birds."

"This would be quite the sight," chuckled the Lord of Salt Shore. "But Uller and his friends are not known for their brains and their abilities to supply a military campaign."

"Nor have they the gold to field the number of men they are boasting." And they used the mentions of tens of thousands of knights and spearmen to put the crowds into a frenzy everywhere they went. Men they never had and that the Princedom couldn't afford to lose or pay.

"Thank the Gods, it is a harsh winter," her uncle threw a few copper coins to children who were running alongside their horses. "The Marches are under feet of snow and the prices of food are rising. We don't have a fleet to send north, so the warriors wanting to fight a war will sign with sellsword companies and go die in the Disputed Lands."

"But once winter will end..."

Her uncle's expression was not encouraging. Once spring came, it would be war and since she liked rather keeping her head attached to her shoulders, it would be war against King's Landing. A war she was not sure at all they could win. Thousands of the Stormlands chivalry had died and the Reach plains were soaked with blood, but her subjects forgot these lands were huge and not a desert. And they would have a big dragon to help them.

"Would an alliance with the Black Kingdom be acceptable?" After all, the enemy of your enemy was your ally...or someone approaching that word until you had no land frontier with it. Then you were enemies once more.

"Maybe but I found no parchment trail indicating the Prince thought about it, thus I expect long and difficult negotiations. If we are serious about the idea of an alliance, we will need to send someone to the Riverlands."

"Someone named Uller?"

The Princess of Dorne giggled before taking an appropriate mourning face once they passed the great gates of Sunspear and rode to a nearby hill. In other lands, a Prince would have been buried in a great construction of stone and gold or in a holy ground surrounded by green fields. In Dorne, their remains were purified by the sands of the desert, returning to the arid land. The Princedom had no fertile lands to spare after the dragons burned everything, and if he she had tried to make an exception for Prince Qoren, there would have been a revolt by the end of the moon.

"But he remained unbroken to the end..."

* * *

 **King Daeron Targaryen**

Two days ago, he had thought he would be able to rest once he came back home. The Iron Islands had been finally dealt with. Harlaw, Old Wyk and Pyke had been sacked; thousands of the men, women and children the Ironborn had taken in their damned raids had been saved. Castles had been stormed and burned. Hundreds of longships, fisher boats and a lot of small hulls had been sunk, dismantled or seized by force of arms. The Great Houses of the Iron Islands had been ruthlessly and methodically destroyed. The few forests the Ironborn had left had been burned to the ground by Tessarion and Westerners eager for some revenge. Harbours had been emptied of everything which might be valuable. Ancestral vaults had been raided.

As far as he was aware, the power of the Iron Islands had been broken for decades. The Lords and Ladies of the Westerlands and the Reach were extremely satisfied by the bloody vengeance he had wrecked onto the pirates and reavers of the deceased Red Kraken. Daeron had not liked at all massacring men and women who couldn't fight back and for all he knew, weren't guilty of the atrocities their captains had done on the Sunset Sea's coast. But he had to gain the loyalty of the Redwyne fleet and what was left of the Lannister and their bannersmen. Half of the kingdom had already been lost; it wouldn't do to provide the Blacks an excuse to add more lands to their rule.

He had hoped the capital would be calm when he came back. This had been a really naive wishing, really. Of all his expectations, a warm bed was the only thing he had been really able to enjoy. The Black Reachers he had pardoned were whispering in their beards certain taxes would never have been raised if the other side had won. The Faith eldest septons were furious non-believers – the Starks and the Northerners if one wanted to name them – had gained the control of the Riverlands for the time being. Exiled Lords, led by the survivors of House Bracken, were calling for a renewal of the war as soon as the snow melted and the roads were able to support an army on the march. The merchants were furious Pentos and Braavos were robbing them blind on the prices of the goods they came with.

These problems were dreadful, but paled compared to the one facing him in the room he was seated at this moment.

He had no Small Council anymore.

He had a Master of Whisperers and a few Knights, Captains and his sworn swords were obeying his will but the aftermath of Bosworth Bridge had not been good for his advisors. Or at least the men he had thought would advise him justly and wisely for the good of the realm.

By the Seven, save Larys they had done nothing to prove they were the best men for these positions. Few men and women truly mourned them and if he showed a mourning expression in public, it was because he had understood too late how unsuitable the Stormlanders and many of their allies had been to govern the Seven Kingdoms.

"The first Master we must absolutely replace is the Master of Coin, your Grace," said the exiled Lord of Harrenhal Larys Strong. "We are in a perilous economic situation, despite the return of the treasury to King's Landing, and the death of Ser Tyland Lannister has left several of the wealthiest merchants and important guilds in turmoil."

It was certainly true the death of the master of Coin a fortnight ago - from an infection of the wounds he had suffered when he was tortured - had not been good for the order of the capital and the activities of its smallfolk.

"We will need to replace him with a Westerner," affirmed Daeron in a tired voice. The day had been full of petitioners and new problems no one wanted to deal with. "They have the greatest experience with gold dragons." The Targaryens had mastered the fire-breathing ones, but the Masters of Casterly Rock were in control when it came to money. Since his coronation, the young King had learned the former was not necessarily more powerful than the latter. "A Lannister would be ideal, but I would be glad to have any competent Lord Lady Johanna can spare." He waited a moment before asking his spymaster. "I suppose you have names to propose?"

"Lord Willam Stackspear and Lord Roland Westerling are the best choices, according to my agents," with his cane and his dark clothes, the last of the Strong Lords was looking like a poor and defenceless cripple, but appearances were deceiving. "They served well Lord Jason before the war and are free of their duties."

It was a manner like any other to say they had been liberated from Black jails, Daeron thought.

"Lord Westerling was far more popular and has my preference. You will show me the reports we have on them before we sent the ravens," and the small Riverlander clothed in black nodded. "The problem of the Master of Coin is closed, though we will have to find a Crownlander Knight to assume his duties the time he arrives from the Westerlands. I intend to name Lord Alan Redwyne as Master of Ships."

Lord Corlys Velaryon had been released from his titles and authorised to go back to the Black-held island of Driftmark a last time. Daeron had understood the grieving old man was tired, ill and would not see the end of winter. Better he spent his last moments with his family than making plans they didn't have the gold for.

Alan Redwyne, victorious from the Ironborn at the Shield and Iron Islands, would replace him. The Reacher High Admiral had gained thousands of admirers in the last moons by annihilating the pirates of the Red Kraken and this was always good to seize on.

"A wise choice, "commended Larys. "Who do you intend to place as Hand of the King?"

"I have not a lot of men available." Between the losses suffered during the last campaign and how dangerous a brainless Baratheon had proven for his own cause, a prudent and conciliatory Lord was necessary.

"I was thinking of Lord Marq Merryweather." The Lord of Longtable was not Borros Baratheon in military matters and it had to be a good thing, right?

"His support towards the cause of your brother has been rather...lukewarm."

A polite manner to say Lord Marq had sent one thousand soldiers to join the Hightower army when it came eastwards where he could have easily mustered three times time that number and his support in gold was small and unimportant.

"The Lords who supported eagerly my brother are dead, Lord Larys," his answer sounded more aggressive than he wanted but it was the truth. "I can't choose a bannersmen of Oldtown now or the rest of the South will revolt once winter will end. But we need a Reach Lord to convince Highgarden they are the granary and the heart of our armies."

The Westerlands had had its villages and fields burned by the Ironborn. The Stormlands had lost their entire army at Bosworth Bridge. Despite its losses, the Reach would recover faster than the two other kingdoms and his personal domains in the Crownlands – whose loyalty had to be considered dubious at the best of times. Therefore the new Hand had to be a Reacher, and it had to be one who had not given any reasons to the rest of his kingdom to hate him.

"Unless I find a better candidate than Lord Marq, he will be candidate to become the new Hand of the King." Daeron poured himself a cup of wine and drank it in one swallow. "We also need someone to replace Grandison as Master of Laws."

Lord Grandison had perished at Bosworth Bridge and while they had found his helmet near the ruined bridge, there were hundreds of corpses which could be his and between the flames and the water, nobody was able to recognise him.

"Lord Royce Caron is the best choice we have left." The Green King found himself nodding in approval. After the amount of destruction the Lord of Grandview and his troops had done, the Stormlanders he could trust with the position were few in numbers.

"Until the Citadel chooses another Grand Maester, we will keep working with Master Tyler and his assistants." The chaos unleashed by the deaths of the Citadel and the accusations a bastard had ordered the assassination had been a masterstroke...but now the students and professors were unable to do their duties.

Daeron had almost refused to believe it at first. These old fools had tried to kill the dragons but were unable to keep in order their house once the grey beards were gone? It was saying very bad things about the Maesters. It was in many ways worse for House Targaryen; it was the last dragonlords who had been neglectful enough to let these vipers come close to use their poisons and machinations.

Yes, they had fallen far. But Westeros was not completely lost to them. Dragons were alive and once summer warmed the skies and the earth again, he would try to restore the dream of the Conqueror. New dragons would be birthed at Dragonstone for his children, villages and cities would be rebuilt. The errors of the past would be learned. Dragons could not fight dragons once more, the realm would not survive it and thousands of his subjects deserved peace.

"And then there is Lord Unwin Peake." Daeron sighed as the visage of the 'Clubfoot' was part-apologetic and part-satisfied. "I may not have liked the man very much but was it necessary to eliminate him?"

"His actions were harmful to the realm, your Grace."

"Yes and trying to kill him five times in a single moon wasn't a sign you were after his head personally?"

"I serve the realm."

Absently, Daeron wondered if there was a King of Westeros who hadn't wanted to strangle his Master of Whisperers once per day.

Maybe this was the reason why Maegor and Prince Daemon had chosen women for the position. Instead of strangling them, they were venting their fury in the royal bed. Maybe he would fire Larys and hire a Braavosi courtesan in his place...though given the short lives of the aforementioned royals, his reign would be short and agitated if he acted upon it.

No, he wouldn't do this to Arianne. And Larys could be useful...although evidently not when a Peake was involved.

"When you want to kill one of my Lords, please ask me first." He ordered to the spymaster. "Now what are these rumours of a Targaryen residing at Lys?"

* * *

 **Lord Commander Ramsay Bolton**

When it came to House words, most Northerners recognised the 'Winter is coming' of House Stark were the best. According to the old tales of the Dreadfort, Starks and Boltons had fought at the end of the Age of Heroes to know who would take the title. It was rumoured the Lord of Winterfell of this era had claimed that since he had built the Wall, the words should go to him and his descendants. The first Lord Bolton had disagreed and flayed a bannersman of the Builder. All it had achieved had been his long and dolorous execution. House Bolton had been forced to take 'our knives are sharp' for House words, and centuries after centuries this had been far from the only defeat Winterfell had given the Dreadfort.

But millennia later, Seven Kingdoms or not Seven Kingdoms, winter was still coming, burying the Gift, the trees, the rocks and the forts of the Night's Watch under a heavy cold and white mantle. Staying outside without furs and clothes covering every part of the skin was a death sentence for a man. Veteran or novice, nobody stayed long outside in a Northern winter anyway and the reason had to be excellent. With all this snow, walking was difficult and exhaustion was never far away.

Rangings, small or great, were abandoned for the entire season. The animals were rare, sleeping or having fled to more clement skies. The wildling tribes were hiding in caverns, under the snow or in certain villages they had spent most of autumn building. The openings of the tunnels were partially buried under ice and snow and work was hard to keep the ancient gates completely functional. If the rangers were to find refuge quickly as they were pursued by someone or something, by the time the builders and the stewards opened the gates everyone would be long dead.

Guarding the Wall was a nightmare too. Ramsay was sure that there was some Lord or Knight in the South at this very moment telling his friends the black brothers feared climbing the very edifice they defended.

It was true. The snow, the cold weather and the ice made everything incredibly dangerous for the Night's Watch, beginning with the very earth and ending with the Wall. The cage which should have allowed them to come up and down was inside the fort, as were the chains, the ropes the wood parts and every important piece of their lifter. When the blizzards were too cold, the ice destroyed the metal faster than you could say it in High Valyrian.

As for the stairs, it was better not to think about it. Five men had died trying to reach the top when autumn had come and now they were a deadly trap in all but name. Under this climate, the steps had become too irregular, too slippery and there was nothing to find anew your equilibrium once you had lost it. When you were hundred or two hundred feet above the ground, it was a small problem...no one had ever survived a fall that high.

Winter was a deadly period but the moons where they were buried under the snow were also supposed to be calm. Wildlings were hibernating like the animals they were supposed to be copulating with. Ships came once or twice per moon, bringing with them supplies and small numbers of recruits, but far less than in spring or summer.

Discarding the snow a new gust of wind had sent on his black clothes, the Lord Commander walked the last steps towards the refuge he intended to visit and knocked three times powerfully in order for Maester Hollis to hear him.

"Open for the Lord Commander! The word of the day is apple!" Days ago, these measures would not have been necessary. But then days ago he had not been forced to kill five black brothers because they had tried to imitate his voice and storm their way in.

After a wait which seemed to last too many turn of hourglasses for his fingers and every apart of his body, the great door half-opened and he rushed into the gap. A heartbeat later, Hollis closed brutally again, trying to preserve as much warmth in the space as it was possible.

It didn't feel terribly necessary, of course. After the terrible cold he had endured outside, the place he had just entered was like the antechamber before a great pyre. Layer by layer, he got rid of his furs, his cloak and the different pieces of cloth he used to keep himself warm.

"How fares our estimated visitor today, Hollis?" He asked to the senior and most experienced maester of Castle Black.

It didn't mean a lot, since Hollis looked his age and he was barely thirty name days old. But when the old Maester Deremond had died from a fever a year ago, someone at Oldtown must have believed Hollis career was best served on the Wall. With his continuously dishevelled brown hairs and beard, the Reacher had a visage which didn't incite trust and confidence in himself or those surrounding him.

"Our visitor is getting better, despite all the Night's Watch efforts to feel her unwelcome," replied the man of the Citadel rudely. Ramsay Bolton let it pass, one because shouting at the man for not respecting his authority had proved pointless and two because he had no maester to replace him here.

"She is a woman. Women are not serving in the Watch and for good reasons."

Maybe in ancient times it had been different. Before the Conqueror decided to unite Westeros and put an end to the long quarrels between the different kingdoms, the Night's Watch had been an old and respected order. They had had their periods of defeat and doubt certainly, but they had been ten thousand strong and with a thousand Knights to lead the charges and provide leadership when the arrows started to fly.

But the Conquest had been the death of the Night's Watch. The South had before the last decade forgotten the northern frontier, happy to bathe in their decadence and stop thinking about the Wall and the men protecting it. Now there were barely two thousand and five hundred men wearing the black...between the young, the elders and the ill, he could count on two thousand swords if he had to defend the Wall.

But this admission didn't seem to satisfy the young maester at all.

"Your men are rapists, Commander." The contempt when Hollis uttered the last word was venomous. "Their heads should be put on pikes and placed at the top of the Wall!"

"Don't you think I know it?" Ramsay replied bitterly. "I know the black brothers are unreliable! I know I can't trust them!" There were about four hundred men he could rely on to obey his orders from Eastwatch to Shadow Tower; all were men-at-arms and sworn swords from Winterfell, the Dreadfort, Karhold and White Harbor. This was four hundred out of two thousand and some. "But until south of the Neck the Lords decided to send true warriors instead of the prisoners, rapists, murderers and green boys, the Night's Watch will continue on this path."

The visage of Hollis tensed but the Lord Commander didn't care. The Reach was the most populated of the Seven Kingdoms, it should and could have sent hundreds of proper recruits if they wanted. They had the treasure and the population. But they ignored him, preferring to send one or two old and young maesters, the outlaws they captured poaching or killing and the few veteran soldiers who caused them too many problems.

The brother of the Lord of the Dreadfort finished to remove his winter clothes and turned around, before walking at a slow pace in direction of the warmth. This room had been built with width in mind, at a time where they were a lot of Knights, their squires and their friends to accommodate.

It was a good thing because the brown dragon revealing itself to his sight was not exactly small.

"Young Nettles and her daughter are doing fine, my Lord." Said Hollis as he watched a young woman hold a baby in her arms, coiled between the claws of Sheepstealer. "The birth was far better than I'd hoped for and both baby and mother are eating well."

"Good, because a raven from our new Queen has arrived." True, they were a king and a Queen now, but in Ramsay's mind there was only one sovereign worth recognising these days. Yes, they were supposed to take no sides but when one crown told you they had found some bored Braavosi, new recruits and new supplies for the Watch and the other didn't deign answering your messages, the choice wasn't that difficult. "She, the baby and the dragon are expected at Winterfell the moment they are able to evade the blizzards."

"It will be too dangerous," protested the Maester.

"We may have not the choice," and there was no trace of joke in his voice. "This dragon is eating our reserves of meat at a prodigious rapidity. Winterfell and the northern castles have promised to send us more supplies as compensation but Sheepstealer is eating too much. And the black brothers are getting angrier a newly arrived woman is getting everything she wants while they're enduring the food of the worst cook of the Seven Kingdoms."

In fact the food was just one pretext amongst many. Between her dragon, her rather comely looks – which had attracted a Prince no less if the rumours were to be believed – and the fact the she-dragonrider had angered the cannibal tribes by annihilating one of their clans in dragonfire, the less intelligent men he was forced to call 'brothers' were whispering things which were quite concerning. The further 'Princess' Nettles flew away from the Night's Watch, the better it would be for anyone. Ramsay feared a mutiny was a very frightening and likely outcome if the young woman stayed here for the next moons. With nothing to keep their minds alert and their hands out of trouble, men could think of very ugly things to do.

"What is the name of the baby by the way?"

"Daena," replied the man who helped the young mother during the childbirth in a thoughtful voice. "Will the last name be Waters or Targaryen?"


	15. The World is not Fair

**Chapter 15**

 **The World is not Fair**

 **Archmaester Robert Turen**

If there were a few things he had learned in his two and thirty years at the Citadel, it was that there was no justice in this world and the Gods didn't care about fairness.

Take the war which had just ended. Where was the fairness in this bloody disaster? Two incestuous and mad Valyrians fought for their father's throne when it was bloody obvious they both hadn't the slightest clue how to rule. By all rights, the two crazy Targaryen should have been shipped to Essos and sold to the arenas of Slaver's Bay. That way, the slavers and Westeros would have filled their purses with gold and the spectators of the gladiatorial pits would have had something to cheer and remember.

Robert Turen, Seneschal of the Citadel, sighed under his mask of Valyrian steel. The screams, protestations and accusations of the crowd in front of him were hurting his poor ears, and he was feeling quite thirsty. He wanted one of his preferred bottles of wine, maybe the soft red nectar he bought from a little vineyard south of the Florent lands, and he wanted this drink badly.

But since he had to maintain a dignified image, being the last surviving Archmaester until these Seven-damned elections were over, he was sure he wouldn't get it. There would be excuses, of course. The vineyards had been torched by deserters, bandits or a rampaging army. Moderation was encouraged in these times of hardship. Welcome to an unfair world. After so long, he was almost used to it.

Robert's father had been a powerful Knight sworn to House Swann of Stonehelm. Normally, this should have ensured a bright future for Robert, but alas it was not to be. His father was quite avaricious with his money, and Robert was the second son. Before he was ten, he had already accepted he was never going to be a knight – not even an errant one – and the day he became a man he was shipped out to Oldtown. He had never seen back his father, and according to the rare ravens he had received, the opportunity would never come again. The old imbecile and his eldest brother Lester 'the Brute' had met their end at the Battle of Bosworth Bridge. Given that Robert was at the Citadel, his youngest brother had refused to swear to the vows of a septon and crossed the Narrow Sea to fight in the Disputed Lands as a sellsword and there was a child daughter for sole heir, the next years were going to be hard for the Knight House.

When he had arrived at the Citadel, his spirits had been high. Assuredly being a maester was not his first, second or third choice of work he had imagined in his dreams. He had wanted to be a hero, jousting at tourneys, saving princesses and fighting epic duels against the enemies of the realm. But when he had thought about it, drinking countless barrels in the taverns and making many friends while they devoured hundreds of books was not that bad. Except once again, his aspirations had been crushed.

The Reacher students of Oldtown had not liked him from the start, and the maesters teaching him had been fast to imitate them. He was a Stormlander and one of the poorest ones; no one wanted him as a friend. In record time, he had been isolated and then as a punishment, sent to be the assistant of the old Archmaester Martyn. The white-bearded man had been the self-proclaimed specialist of the 'higher mysteries' and Robert Turen, half of his chain desperately incomplete, had thought he was at least going to learn a few interesting tricks. It had taken him three days to realise Martyn was utterly crazy and more interested in mixing diverse explosive powders than really studying glass candles. The road of disappointment continued. The world was unfair, and that was it. Four years later, and the Stormlander-born maester had completed his chain – six of the Valyrian-steel rings he had forged in it were there for no good reason he could see. And one year after this, his superior had finally blown himself up in another explosion.

Fortunately, Robert had not been there when it happened.

Unfortunately, the Citadel had needed a new Archmaester and since no wanted the job, take a guess who the grey-beards had chosen?

And so at the relatively young age of five and twenty name days, he was the Archmaester supposed to be the specialist in everything magical. Too bad he hadn't the slightest clue of what magic consisted of. Hundreds of evenings, he had felt like a fraud, wondering what would happen once the rest of the Citadel discovered the truth. He could stare at the glass candles from dawn to dusk, none had made a slightest spark. He had pronounced words of power from books his predecessor had hidden in the indescribable chaos of his library. He had tried everything and magic didn't answer.

In the end, he had decided that since he was a fraud, he was going to be a competent and credible one. He had painted glyphs from Asshai-by-the-Shadow on his grey robes at a laborious rate. Several medallions of gold and obsidian had been forged under his guidance. He had used the fearsome powders of his oldest masters to provoke hilarious things like smoke and mini-explosions when he announced his presence. He had hired several poor fellows to disguise themselves as warlocks and the likes for a night or two in his company.

By all rights, it had been a resounding success...and as a result a decade later the other Archmaesters had done their utmost to prevent him from knowing of their grand plan to 'destroy magic forever'. With step one of course, being the elimination of the Targaryen dragons.

If the affair had not been horrifying and prone to catastrophic results – like a civil war setting the entire realm aflame – he would have laughed for moons.

These morons were not able to guess he was no warlock, sorcerer or magician, but they wanted to kill magic? The legends of the First Men, Children of the Forest and the Others had to celebrate in their graves when they heard of this conspiracy...

On the left table of the hall, a maester stood and shouted his undying support for some candidate he couldn't remember the name of. This must be one of the maesters who had just forged his chain, Robert could tell. The Redwyne maester – too many freckles on his tanned face – looked ready to burst in his own importance.

What was he thinking about before that? Oh yes, the world was unfair. The Archmaesters – his incapable and blind masters of the Citadel – had not exactly well-thought their plan and must have left their footsteps all over the crime scenes. Perhaps in another time, a tired king would have left them get away with it. But luck had not been with them this time, and Sater, Cley, Tyrar, Gulian and all their other friends had apparently not considered this was betrayal of the highest order they were contemplating.

And there was only one punishment for treason.

Since the Order of the Maesters was technically independent, the retaliation had taken the form of an assassin. Perhaps King Daeron didn't want the problems associated with an open trial. It was also possible the order had not come from the King himself, the revenge from beyond-the-grave of a Targaryen having lost his dragon and his life.

No matter the identity of the sleeping partner, it had been a resounding success. Robert had been the only one of thirteen Archmaesters to leave the library alive, and it was only because he had run for his life and three shots of the assassin had struck the myriad of 'mystical' amulets he was always carrying on him.

But as he had already said, there was no justice in this world. The maesters had been anything but happy at the news the annihilation of the Archmaesters. They had all but accused him of being behind the murders after a moon spent fruitlessly tracking the deadly assassin.

The accusations had not continued long. By a turn of circumstance Robert wasn't exactly sure of, Luthor Flowers had been accused of being the paymaster behind the twelve murders. That the bastard hadn't any motive to do it had escaped the minds of the judges. Yes, the world was unfair. Luthor Flowers had been hanged and the maesters had chosen to close their mouth as the dire financial state of their Order started to become evident, the new Lord of Oldtown Edmund Hightower was not their friend and the winter became colder with freezing winds coming from the sea.

The Maesters were depending on the monetary donation of the Great Lords of the Seven Kingdoms. That was a simple and painful truth. When the realms had been independent and the maesters had at least a reputation of impartiality, it was working. But since the Conquest, the Citadel had concentrated its power at Oldtown and serving in castles north of the Blackwater was not a reward, it was a punishment. Therefore the decision of several members of the Order to organise a 'Black Conclave' at Maidenpool was terrible news. If the Black Queen recognised them as the legitimate maesters, it was nearly half of the realm which was going to be forbidden to the Citadel.

The Archmaester of the higher mysteries had been besieged for the last couple of moons by terrified Reachers. Now that the deed was done and the peace officially in effect, they were terrified at the idea of losing their spies, their allies and their connections in the other provinces.

They had named him Seneschal and expected from him he brought back the blessed years of King Viserys I, or better the reign of Jaehaerys I. They didn't like hearing they had to tighten their belts and work seriously to regain their reputations.

How they expected him to do this when it was best to avoid the attention of the Iron Throne and prevent the beginning of a new war was a mystery for him. Perhaps it was the same madness which had encouraged them to kill the dragons. Robert didn't know if it would have killed magic for sure, but he could tell it had made the fortune of many pirates. Before the war, only the most insane corsairs and tyrants of the sea tried to attack a Westerosi holdfast. They knew very well what would happen: a dragon would come and burn them down to ashes. Now that there were not enough dragons around, the slavers of Essos had resumed their depredations. Welcome the new era of science and progress, Archmaesters.

In the last days the angry pack besieging the offices had found another solution, namely choosing a new Archmaester for the yellow god mask, and take care of the Citadel's economy. The man was going to tell them the gold vaults were empty, but at least it was going to lessen his workload.

"This round of election has elected a worthy candidate!" exclaimed the maester serving as herald for today. "Maester Alvin has received two hundred and eight votes, an incontestable majority, and he has the reputation and the knowledge to claim the title!"

The last words were pure hypocrisy: if someone hadn't had the reputation and the skills, he would not have been authorised to present his candidacy. The Maesters were not the Night's Watch, thank you very much.

A rather thin and brown-bearded man rose from his chair. He was harbouring an expression of triumph and his chain was shining in red gold, yellow gold and silver. Robert applauded with the others, though he felt no joy. Alvin had been one of those students who had never accepted him when he arrived here, and the newly promoted Archmaester was a Tyrell appointee body and soul.

Trying to muster as much enthusiasm as he could, he took the gold mask, rod and ring, handed them ceremoniously to the insufferable Highgarden bannersman and commenced to recite the traditional congratulations.

"Maesters of the Order, it is always a great pleasure..."

* * *

 **Lord Larys Strong**

In hindsight, insisting the audience with the Rogare emissary happened in one of the private rooms fitted by the Conciliator and not the throne room had been a wise decision. The shouting match between Daeron and the arrogant Lysene would remain at the state of rumours and scandalous whispers that everyone important would forget in days. In these hard moons of winter, there was no need to present an ugly spectacle in front of the surviving court and merchants of King's Landing.

The footsteps of the guards and the man they escorted faded away, and King Daeron breathed heavily in his large seat. Since the cushioned work had been built for his father, the legitimate sovereign of the Seven Kingdoms was looking rather thin though in reality King Viserys the First had been too fat in his last years of reign.

"And people wonder why the Sunset Kingdoms don't like the Essossi magisters."

The sentence had been uttered in a musing voice, but looking at his liege, Larys could not see any humour. The former Lord of Harrenhal didn't answer back. After all, he was sharing the feelings in this case. Pentoshi, Braavosi, Lysene, Tyroshi, Volantene and Myrish...at the first sign of weakness, these vultures were circling to tear apart the trade of Westeros. Many coastal villages had been sacked by 'pirates' these last years and the bloodbath of Driftmark during the war had been so thorough he was not sure House Velaryon would recover before two generations.

"Do you think I missed something?" asked brutally the King. Today the royal clothes were a dark green with touches of black on the shoulders and the legs. The tunic was going very well with the dark grey clouds and the snowfalls of dawn.

"Your Grace, I don't think you and I missed something in his words." The Clubfoot said with a dark expression. "The Lysene are telling us they have a son of Rhaenyra prisoner at Lys. It is a confirmation of the whispers we had started to hear last moon." The Master of Whisperers had to admit, the Targaryens were good at survival. Other lineages would have already been extinct after receiving so many blows during a clash of arms. But it didn't mean the Rogare merchant had not created a large problem. "They have a Prince and they want a ransom of King."

The youngest brother of King Aegon chuckled loudly though the joy was almost absent in his mouth.

"Two million and a half gold dragons are not a ransom of King," declared the rider of Tessarion. "It is the ransom you pay for a King, his dragon, his council and an entire fleet. For this price, I would be able to rebuild King's Landing twice over and muster a new army of forty thousand swords to crush the Blacks once for all."

This was perhaps a bit of an exaggeration...but not that much. He was sure a million dragons in gold was a sum largely sufficient to gather a large army, at least. Rebuilding King's Landing just once was considerably more expensive, after the troubles, insurrections and dragon ravages of the last years.

"Prince Viserys is not bonded to a dragon." He felt the remark had to be made, considering the circumstances. "If my agents can be trusted, the egg he had with him has not yet hatched."

Judging by the light burning in Daeron's eyes, the young Green King was not completely reassured by this fact.

"Every child of Rhaenyra and Daemon, bastard or not, became a dragonrider in his or her own right. Viserys' egg may have not yet hatched, but I would not bet ten dragons it will stay true until his sixteen name days."

This was a good point, unfortunately. Too bad he had already used the assassin's card on the vipers of the Maesters Order. He had not two cursed helms of Harren the black at his disposal.

"But you're right," admitted the King. "This young Prince does not represent a large threat as long as he has no dragon to ride. And since he's a Black by his mother and his father, our bannersmen are not going to suddenly change their minds and support him."

Daeron whispered something to himself before redirecting his eyes to the empty chair in front of him.

"May I assume we have not the gold to pay this huge mountain of gold?"

The Master of Whisperers showed a sad smile to his royal patron. The Royal Treasury may have stayed intact since they had transported it to secure locations before the war began, but it was now disappearing faster than the purse of a young man in a whorehouse. There were massive loans to be repaid, Great and Lesser Houses to be rewarded for their loyalty and their losses. Castles burned and sacked had to be rebuild, the new frontier separating the two kingdoms had to be guarded and fortified. There were granaries to repair and food harvests to purchase. Already they were plenty of gaunt and desperate faces in King's Landing and the nearby holdfasts, and winter was showing no sign of weakness. The kingdom needed all the gold it had to buy food, winter clothes and mend the bleeding wounds of the war; saving a Prince which may or may not have been the King a year ago and was living in a Lysene palace would not solve the thousand of problems they had to deal each fortnight.

"I think that if we had really no choice your Grace, the Master of Coin could find half of this sum in five or six days...but to gather two millions, we would have to raise the taxes."

Daeron nodded negatively the moment the words left his mouth.

"No, absolutely not. The smallfolk and the merchants are already unhappy with us, we can't pressure them further. If we increase the taxes or create new ones, there will be riots and murder in the streets by nightfall." The son of Lady Hightower shook his head in regret. "No, I don't see any way we can afford to pay this ransom...the true question is if my Black cousin will pay it for her half-brother."

In theory, this was Larys' very task to answer this question but he had not an answer ready for his sovereign. His knowledge of the 'Black court' was far from complete and the Riverlands were not in a good position to listen to the sailors travelling to Lys and the Stepstones.

"I don't know if your Black cousin will want to pay the ransom, but honestly I don't think they have the gold for this." He replied honestly. "The main mines the Starks, Arryns and the rest of the Trident Lords are able to extract metal from are silver, not gold. Unlike your Grace, they've started the war without a Royal Treasury and my agents are struggling to understand how they managed to pay their armies in the first place."

Granted, the realm had been at peace and wealthy for decades, but many Lords had continued to pay their troops far longer than they should have been able to.

"The Blacks are resourceful and I will ask a few copper-counters today to lend me their skills to the task, but I don't think they can afford to pay more than two hundred thousand dragons before bankruptcy."

Between this and the two million and five hundred thousand these gold-thirsty Rogares wanted, it left an immense gap. And if the Iron Throne had many loans to repay, castles to rebuild and allies to help, the same had to be true for Baela Targaryen and the Lords having followed her in the destruction of the realm.

"The Blacks could decide to sell another dragon egg or one of the Valyrian heirlooms they took from Dragonstone," the dragonrider pointed out.

"They have a dragon egg with Prince Viserys; they don't need another one. And from all artefacts the Blacks have in their hands, only Dark Sister is likely to interest the Rogares."

This Lysene House did not appear to be ruled by men who gave away shipments of wealth for a few dusty books.

"No, your Grace. Prince Viserys will remain a hostage for many years. It will take probably decades for the Blacks to gather this gigantic ransom and by the time they have, he will be an old man, and an old foreigner. No Westerosi of high lineage will follow him."

"And if the egg hatches?" A simple question posed, and one there could be only one answer.

"Then we will hire the best assassins gold can buy to kill him. The kingdom can survive a furious Lysene Bank, but your Grace can't fight three dragons with only one..."

* * *

 **Balon Pyke**

They called him Balon Greyjoy now.

King Balon Greyjoy, Master of the Iron Islands, Lord of Rock and Ashes. But in his heart, he didn't feel different. He was always Balon Pyke, bastard son of a dead Lord of Pyke, survivor of a few battles and disasters.

It was true he reigned now over rocks and ashes, like every man and woman of the islands. No Ironborn captain could pretend ruling over the seas these days. The great longships had disappeared under the waves, in the flames of dragonfire or the hands of their conquerors.

The Battle of the Kingsmoot had been awfully one-sided. With a dragon on the other side and the Ironborn captains drunk of glory, power and gold, the word 'battle' was generous. It had been a slaughter, pure and simple. The blue beast the Targaryen had flown over Old Wyk had destroyed them with an incredible facility. Harlaw, Botley, Goodbrother...the banners were different but all of their men had fallen. Great reavers had died along poor sailors in a storm of death. Arrows had been shot in vain. Axes, swords, spears and warhammers had been worse than useless. Those who had tried to flee directly by sea had met a bloody end against the anvil of the Redwyne ships.

Balon would like to say it had been a rout when the great captains were all gone, but it was a weak word for the chaos which had followed this defeat. Accompanied by a few Drowned Priests, he had gathered between three hundred and four hundred warriors, servants, women and the like before taking three longships on the other side of the island and escaping to Great Wyk. As far as he was able to say, the group he had commanded had been one of the rare ones to keep their lives that day.

The forts of Old Wyk, the bones of Nagga, the longships, the beaches of stone and the longships, all were gone. And with the Iron Lords decimated, the greenlanders had moved for the kill. Pyke had been stormed and Harlaw sacked. The great strongholds were taken and the granaries were pillaged or destroyed. In mere fortnights, the brilliance of the strategy had become painfully evident.

The Ironborn were losing everything they cared about. With Old Wyk, they had lost their holy grounds and the sacred place to crown a King. With Harlaw, they had lost the food they needed to survive the winter, the thousands of thralls to work in the mines and their first shield against the enemy raids. With Pyke, they had lost their greatest armoury, the most defensible citadels, several of their best harbours and most of the prestige they had gained by humbling the Westerlands. With the naval defeats, they had lost control of the sea and their seaman's pride.

If these blows had been struck once per decade, maybe they could have endured. But they were struck in days and the morale of his people had collapsed. And he didn't count the countless raids, the wells poisoned, the fields burnt and the minor keeps demolished.

The Redwyne warships and the dragon were long gone, but they still didn't dare returning to the great fortresses and their ancestral homes. Here were the men, women and children he had helped saving, gathered in the Great Hall of Crow Spike Keep. They were a bit less than a thousand people, and for such a small keep it was a lot. In better times, they would have been considered beggars and unfit to be welcomed in this cadet seat of House Goodbrother. But the reavers of Crow Spike Keep had never returned from the Kingsmoot – Balon had seen their biggest longship break in two with his own eyes and didn't think the rest had fared better.

So when the first refugees had come from the destruction of Old Wyk and the rest of the Goodbrother forts, the gates had been opened. Many families had been saved from a cold death in the deadly and stormy nights of Great Wyk. In the first days, they had hoped thousands more would join the cause.

But this flow of warriors and smallfolk had never appeared on their doorsteps. On one hand, it was a relief because they wouldn't have anything to feed them with. The waves and the sky knew they had to ration heavily if they wanted to see the next spring. On the other hand, no one coming was giving birth to grim and dark rumours about what was appearing to the rest of the Iron Islands. He was trying to maintain morale, repeating many families were now hiding in far-away castles and refuges like they did, away from the coast and the greenlanders' wrath.

But it was not working, and people were angry. They blamed Dalton of course, but his royal half-brother was long gone in the Halls of the Drowned God. Perhaps if Dalton had lived, the smallfolk would have accused him. But he had died from this damned arrow in the siege of the Shield Islands. And the Red Kraken had been a King and a renowned warrior. The Ironborn didn't blame the head of the kingdom; they blamed the evil advisors...

"You could stay here, you know." He told Maron of the Cliffs, the oldest Drowned Priests having survived the succession of disasters, long marches and privations. There were on the greatest tower of Crow Spike Keep – the only tower worth the name, really – and no matter how far his vision went, the spectacle wasn't pretty at all. A cold wind was projecting the small snow mantle everywhere, giving the nearby mountains the appearance of ugly shadows in the distance.

"It is not the solution and you know it, my King." The old man gave him a sad smile. "Our Priesthood made many mistakes in the last years, it is not wrong to say it. And the families here are beginning to hate us for it. You can't afford to lose their support now."

It was true, but it did not make the situation less difficult. Perhaps if they had been some of the worst warmongers here, he would not have felt much regret but the fanatics and Dalton's bitterest supporters were dead now. Either they had burned in dragonfire, or they had thrown themselves from the cliffs in desperate attempts 'to wake up the Drowned God'. It went without saying that in the aftermath, all Balon and his group had seen were floating corpses.

"I am going to miss your advice."

"Bah, we will be back from Downdelving and Corpse Lake before the moon is over!" The Priest of the Cliffs gave a friendly thump on the shoulder before descending the stairs with a mute assistant on his lips.

Balon admired the self-assurance of Maron. Despite what the man had just said, the orders he had given were more or less a death sentence. The Drowned Priests were going to be in the wilderness while winter storms raged. He had to give them as little food as possible to preserve the reserves in the cellars of Crow Spike Keep. Their chances to reach Corpse Lake – the nearest human settlement where they were possibly humans still alive – were tiny for a warrior in his prime. And the Drowned Priests were long past their young years.

No, whatever he might say, the obvious reason of these orders was to thin the numbers of hungry mouths and appease the loud voices demanding the heads of the Priests. According to one of the old reavers having sailed in the Northern seas some years ago, the Northerner did it when the years of winter were upon them. The Ironborn had never been forced to imitate them...until now.

"When I dreamed of a crown, there was more glory and less difficult decisions..."

* * *

 **Lord Cregan Stark**

Fortunately, the Queen had gone to Winterfell two days ago. If she hadn't, Cregan was sure the Rogare envoy would have already been devoured by Moondancer. No one had managed to anger their Queen that much since the beginning of her reign, but Cregan was ready to bet a hundred dragons the Lysene would be the man to break her composure.

It was best to avoid this. Aside from the fact it would leave a mess on the expensive carpets, the Greens would no doubt seize the opportunity to present Northerners, Black Dragons and Valemen as stupid barbarians. Like the Southerners had not impaled and razed hundreds of villages and thousands of hamlets during the war.

"You leave me in a difficult situation, Lysene." Really, his fate had already been decided the moment this arrogant Essossi had set a foot on Westeros but best play the part of the aggrieved Hand of the King.

"I realise two million and a half gold dragons is a large sum," said the silver-gold haired man in pompous robes. The tone employed was hitting his nerves. It was like the man was half-apologising, while his eyes shone in greed and rapacity.

"Oh, no you don't understand." Cregan let his face show a genuine smile on his lips and suddenly the arrogance of the Lysene decreased somewhat. Luaederys, Luvederys...he couldn't honestly remember the name of this Rogare cousin and it wasn't like he needed to. "We will not pay the Rogare bank the fantastic sum you want. There will be no negotiation on this. We have not the gold you want, not after your fleet of corsairs and slavers burned Driftmark and ravaged our coasts."

"It was a legitimate campaign for the damage Prince Daemon did to our beloved city!" The Lysene managed to put a virtuous face, but his hands shook a bit.

"So you admit the Kingdom of Westeros and Lys are at war, then?" Cregan forced himself to ask the question politely, and suddenly the light of fear in the dark blue eyes lighted on, the Essossi realising at last the trap he had just jumped into.

"Yes...I mean no!"

"Are you sure?" The Lord of Winterfell was taking great amusement at the discomfort of his interlocutor. By the looks of it, so were the guards and the rest of the court in the Great Hall of Stone Hedge. There were plenty of chuckles and giggles directed at the Rogare envoy. There were saying those of Valyrian blood were able to stay imperturbable even in front of death, but this was nothing but falsehood. The man he stared at was transpiring heavily and it wasn't because there were large fires several dozen feet away.

"If Lys and Westeros are not at war, the actions of your Rogare patrons are nothing more than piracy on a grand scale. If your city and my Queen's kingdom are in conflict, then by all rights you have come to Her Grace's capital without a banner of peace to make outlandish demands. In this case, I will have no choice but to imprison you in the royal cells until a suitable price will be paid for your release."

The face of the Essossi was not yet the pale of a corpse having stayed several days in the water, but it was fast approaching this point. It was honestly like he had never thought about it. He should have. With the breaking of the alliance of Lys, Myr and Tyrosh and the resumption of hostilities between them, the Seven Kingdoms could largely afford to oppose Lys. They would certainly not get Prince Viserys back, but they had neither the treasury nor the troops to demand his liberation anyway. In a few years perhaps, when the dragon of the Queen and her sister were fully grown...

"Tell me which situation is the right one, before I lose patience and decide for you..."

* * *

 **Author's note** : No battle in this chapter and less dragons, but they will come back next time. Westeros is changing as winter is imposing its cold rule, and many outcomes which went better in canon are now getting completely out of control. More links for the Dance is not Over on P a treon: ww w. p a treon Antony444


	16. The Wounds of the Realm

**Chapter 16**

 **The Wounds of the Realm**

 **Lord Marq Merryweather**

"Why are my Knights so happy when the outcome is war?" The Lord of Longtable wondered, watching the desolation in front of his eyes.

"I suspect they are thinking of glory and wealth, my Lord," replied his loyal servant Bertram, who was following him for the better part of two decades.

"And you may be right," Marq was not grinning right now. "The great and low Knights empty their purses every season in frivolities like tourneys, card games and wine, but they are always convinced next war will see them recover their fortune."

Marq's tone made clear what he thought of these men. In a war, there were few winners and the final outcome was rarely the one people thought when the first sword was drawn. In the civil war which had just stopped, the victors were even rarer.

As far as he could tell, the House which had profited the most from this costly disaster was House Tyrell. Like his House, they had remained on the sidelines. When you were on the side supporting the Green Dragon, it appeared to have been the only correct choice.

"War is terrible and the claims of the Dragon Lords were fought in a sea of blood," he continued, making a move of his arm in direction of what had been before the city of Tumbleton. "But House Merryweather knows peace is far more profitable. Our words are 'Behold our Bounty' for a reason, Bertram. From spring to autumn, the rich lands around Longtable are all the golden horn of plenty we need. Between the large wineries my father invested in, the hundreds of farms producing grain and vegetables, the light trade tariffs on the Mander and the renovation of the roads I ordered a decade ago, House Merryweather is more prosperous than it had ever been in this century."

Something House Footly of Tumbleton could hardly naysay. First, because most of them were long dead and the title and the name had gone to a bastard sired in a night of drunken debauchery twelve years ago. Secondly, because there wasn't much left of the ancient town of Tumbleton as far as he could tell.

Five years ago during his last visit, Tumbleton had been a sprawling mess. The large dungeon of stone where House Footly lived and ruled their lands had towered over a disorganised mass of wooden houses. There had been little will to solve this problem: the Lord Footly of the time, a bull-like man named Colin, had been notoriously avaricious when it was question to spend money on other things which were not armour and lances. How did Marq know this detail? He had been the one to sell said plate armours and weapons to the Lord of Tumbleton.

Marq had not known Lord Colin Footly well but his fellow Reach Lord had seemed to be a fierce supporter of King Aegon. Obviously the generous loans of gold and silver from Oldtown had not played a role in this allegiance, no Ser.

In his humble opinion, this had been a very bad investment for House Hightower. After two battles which had each time involved dragons on both sides, the city of Tumbleton had been razed. There was a town being rebuilt on the southern shore of the Mander with the high hills on its right and the foundations for a new castle, but the former city and the bridges were one league northwards. The comparison was breath-taking, and it was not an exaggeration.

The dungeon of House Footly still stood, the Smith and the Crone only knew how. It was only a blackened and dirty carcass, ravaged by the fires and the rest of the elements. With the snow surrounding it, it was a source of darkness surrounded by white.

The houses of the smallfolk had fared worse against the dragonfire and the wrath of Green and Black soldiers. Between the fires and the autumn rains, about one half of Tumbleton had disappeared in the first battle and two out of three families had fled southwards.

Maybe, if it had stopped there, Tumbleton could have recovered.

But then the day of the second battle had arrived. What had not been burned in the first clash of arms had been set aflame by enraged Black soldiers. The dragons had also breathed their fiery embrace on the defenceless smallfolk and the stone constructions had been consumed all the same.

From left to right and from the Mander to the high hills, the terrain was a blackened plain littered with ruins. Tumbleton was never going to be rebuilt here. According to the rare travellers coming to see if there was anything left to save, at night there were nightmares and sinister whispers in the wind. The dragons and armies had left this place, but their presence would be felt for generations.

"The Lady Regent of Highgarden has granted a very generous loan to House Footly in order for them to rebuild their town," remarked Bertram and Marq nodded pensively.

"They are not the only ones." Dozens of small villages and modest keeps had received help. "The banners of the golden roses are on the ascendant again."

He did not add that those of the high tower were trampled in the dirt; he didn't need to. The power loss suffered by House Hightower had been truly spectacular and Marq was thinking the true extent of the disaster remained to be seen. Sure, they had someone of their blood sitting on the Iron throne. Alas for them, they had lost nearly all their main branch to accomplish that. Houses, merchants and guildsmen were constantly defaulting on their loans. The maesters they could influence were not welcome north of the Trident.

Oldtown and House Hightower would recover. The city and its port were too important to the trade of the Southern realm for any other outcome. But House Tyrell was certainly not going to let them grow so strong a second time and the rest of their bannersmen would remember who had the brilliant idea to proclaim Queen Rhaenyra wasn't the legitimate sovereign.

Assuredly the woman had been unhinged, but they could have easily formed a coalition of Lords Paramount and called for a great Council the moment her madness was unquestionable.

"Maybe the stewards of the Gardeners will do something worthwhile, for once." The Seven knew that in one hundred and thirty-one years of history, the Tyrells had not become paragons of chivalry, superb army leaders, symbol of loyalty or excellent bankers. "I have seen enough. Let's go back to the camp. We have still a long way before we cross the Blackwater and arrive to the capital."

"In your opinion my Lord, is the situation going to be better there than here?"

Lord Marq Merryweather chuckled at the naive remark.

"Don't be ridiculous, Bertram." Aegon and Rhaenyra had ruled in this damned city and there had been the next best thing to two sacks plus a dragon battle. "It is going to be worse."

* * *

 **Lord Kermit Tully**

The drawing was really impressive. Yes, there were not many colours, the artist he had hired for the occasion had limited to brown, green and a faint shade of grey. But it was enough for the point he wanted to make in front of the Knights and the bannersmen he had summoned in the hall of Riverrun. That way, everybody who was not familiar with the western frontier of the Riverlands had an idea of what besieging the fortress of the Golden Tooth entailed.

"As you can see," he pointed his fingers on the critical portions of the drawing interesting him, "the ancestral citadel of House Lefford, better known as the Golden Tooth, is formidably defended. Any army wanting to break through the high pass must walk on a tortuous road whereas the Westerners can easily throw rocks and shoot arrows without fear of reprisal."

His blue eyes moved to the formidable towers dominating the drawing and the landscapes. Viewed like a bard these were ugly constructions, but the Lord of Riverrun knew from his spies there were four large scorpions directly pointed eastwards and ready to massacre the enemies of House Lannister.

"The second layer of the Golden Tooth defences includes at least four trebuchets, two dozen scorpions, eight of these big ballista we destroyed by the Lakeshore and five catapults, with over six hundred archers and guildsmen to repair and support them. Moreover, there are watchtowers and curtain walls there, there and there to make sure no one save a bird can take the guardians of the Golden Tooth in the rear. The cliffs next to the castle are too steep to climb and the goat paths have a system of alarm fires to warn if someone tries to move around in the middle of the night."

Little wonder that the Golden Tooth had rarely fallen in the last centuries, and each time it had happened, it had been an enemy from the west which had given the death stroke. House Lefford and its garrison were forced to rely on the fertile hills and villages situated between them and Casterly Rock to survive. Starve them a few moons when they were unable to replenish their supplies, and this 'invincible citadel' would fall like any other.

Unfortunately, it was not something the Riverlords had been able to accomplish in living memory. Nine times out of ten, it was they who were invaded and had the shame of watching their fields burned, their villages sacked, their granaries stolen and every indignity it was humanly possible to make committed on their soil.

"We know the problem posed by the Golden Tooth, my Lord," intervened Ser Robert Keath, his hirsute brown hair giving the brown man some common points with a hedgehog. "But the realm is at peace now. It may not last long after the winter, but we aren't going to be at war with the Westerlands tomorrow. The snow is too deep, the guards on the high passes must freeze their balls waiting for us to break the peace and my artisans are certainly not going to be happy if I tell them to begin building siege engines in this cold."

There were vigorous nods and other noises around the table to accompany these words. Kermit was not surprised. For all their talks about pay-back and to burn the Green lands in retaliation, winter was really a horrid season for war. The Northerners present in the South were the massive exception: they thought it was fine weather, especially the Umber boasting half-giants.

It was time to surprise his bannersmen with his plans, then. Or at least the first preparations of what promised to be a long and difficult strategy.

"I do not want to take the Golden Tooth," the Lord Paramount of the Riverlands said to them, "I want a fortress like the one of House Lefford protecting our lands. Every time a Lannister army takes the field, I want their corpses lying dead before our walls and our fields intact. I want their banners broken before they have the time to gather and pillage all the mills, hamlets and farms between here and Maidenpool."

"This is...ambitious," said one of the men sworn to Atranta after the initial moment of surprise was gone. By his voice, 'ambitious' was not the word he had thought in his head and no doubt the original choice had been far less polite. "And I realise the advantages of such a fortress doing the exact thing the Westerners have done to our armies so many times in the past. But let's face it: Riverrun had maybe the money to build such a powerful citadel when the Conciliator was King, but it is no longer the case."

"It may be useless in any case," told loudly a Goodbrook stooge Kermit couldn't bother remember the name of. "We can't dig the foundations of something like this in the middle of winter and by spring we may be once again at war."

The first protestations gave strength to the rest of the audience and before a turn of hourglass had the time to happen, every man and woman present was protesting. His bannersmen were too predictable for their own good.

"House Lefford and House Lannisters will try to stop us."

"The Reach and the Stormlands are the greater threat anyway."

"One or two watchtowers would be sufficient and not very costly for our purses."

"We absolutely need the Queen's support for this and she has never showed any inclination to build this type of castle to face the Golden Tooth."

"The Bay of Crabs is too vulnerable and we need more warships to protect our naval trade."

"The one time the Justman tried it, the Brackens and the Blackwoods allied and rebelled against the King of the Rivers because the taxes were too high."

After this sentence, he saw unhappily it was due time re took control of this discussion.

"And yet, it must happen, Sers." The seriousness on his visage was sufficient for the loud-mouthed idiots at the table to cease their hand-wringing and their moaning. "Make no mistake, the new capital is at Stone Hedge and we can't afford a repeat of the war we have just fought. The Lannisters and we have new feuds to settle, and I don't intend to give them the opportunity to destroy decades of work."

"We still need the support of the Queen," the assertion had come from a Vypren this time.

"And I will speak to her Majesty as soon as she returns from the North," Kermit added with a glare to the one who had cut his speech so rudely. "But I am confident Queen Baela will approve this project."

* * *

 **Lord Royce Caron**

The idea of sitting on the Small Council had once been seducing. But then he had been ten years younger, the realm was at peace and the advantages offered by such a title were giving a lot of money, influence and power.

Obviously these ambitions had been dreams of youth, ten or more years ago under King Viserys. It had been before the court was poisoned completely by the feud between the Greens and the Blacks. The terrible war which had forced armies against armies, dragons against dragons and set the Seven Kingdoms aflame was still far away.

Certainly, a merchant or a guild artisan could argue he had gained much power and influence when he accepted to become the new Master of Laws of King Daeron the First of His Name. And in a way, they were right: he had become by default one of the most powerful Stormlords overnight.

But in reality, there was no joy or triumph feeling when he gave one order or repealed a law written by a Black Lord. To wield influence over his peers, he needed two things: power and Lords of Noble Houses. The latter were young men and babes who had stayed at home in the Stormlands. Royce could not, would not, impose ruthless punishments on them for their inexperience in matters of law and justice. Beating your fellow Stormlords in submission had been good for the deceased Lord Borros, but the Lord of Nightsong refused to use the same methods.

He wasn't the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, after all, and even if he had been, Lord Borros' bloody charge at Bosworth Bridge had been a painful reminder that just because your bannersmen followed you it didn't mean you were in the right. The Noble Houses of the Stormlands were still trying to figure out how many husbands, sons, brothers, uncles and cousins they had lost on this terrible rainy day.

As for gold, well it was best to forget it completely. The Treasury's coffers were emptied as soon as they were filled to pay the considerable damage caused by the war, the huge quantities of food the highborn and smallfolk needed now that thousands of granaries had been torched and the ships the realm desperately needed to rebuild a shadow of its former naval trade. The war with the Blacks had destroyed tens of thousands lives and divided the Seven Kingdoms in two; but few advisors and commanders had really thought about what it meant for the naval and land trade.

To be fair, Royce doubted the men who had these duties before him had expected a situation like this. But it had happened and now the conflicting claims arriving each day were giving him deep headaches.

If a merchant ship built and commissioned by a company of Oldtown was in the harbour of Oldtown as he spoke, then surely this hull was subjected to the laws of the Iron Throne. It wasn't complicated. But in the harbours and the coastal towns, such cases were the exception, not the norm. Gulltown had served as a haven for the Black corsairs and there was a minimum of several dozen 'prize ships' in the great shipyards of the Vale. Many Reach and Stormlands great merchants' alliances wanted their return. The reverse was also happening in Southern harbours, by the way.

Many similar agreements were null and valid. The Vale was the worst loss – Vhagar had made a pyre of the Riverlands and the North was too distant to be valuable – but the tithes in fishes, furs, grain, silver and many other precious resources were no longer available to rebuild the Crownlands.

And since no Green or Black sovereign had signed anything on trade regulations, of course it fell to him to unravel this nest of problems. It went without saying the Black interlocutors he communicated with by raven were absolutely not cooperative. The prices they demanded for the return of Green ships, to quote a frequent example, were between extortion and high-way robbery. Lord Melcolm was the greediest one, but Lord Grafton was not far behind.

There was never enough time per day to hear and settle all these problems. The fact the future Hand of the King and Master of Coin were on their way to the capital and as such unable to work on their own thankless duties was making things worse. And the King himself was forced to grant audience to an endless queue of men and women each day on the Iron Throne, a duty which left him unavailable for most of the day.

"Sometimes I think the men who died on the battlefield knew what they were doing," he grumbled as Lord Shermer entered his office just as he tried to decipher the writing of the young Lord Swann. By the Father, the boy was thirteen but his words were a despicable mixture of ink spots and mangled letters.

"May I ask what brought you to this particular revelation?" asked the old Lord. Like Royce, the white-haired man had been given an 'honour' when they came back from the massacre. For him, it had been the post of Master of Laws. For Lord Shermer, it had been the title of Lord Commander of the City Watch.

"I didn't go to the Great Sept recently, if this is what you ask." He had listened to his fair share of self-righteous sermons in his time, bless the Maiden. And since the Warrior had refused to grant them victory or to give some of the deceased Stormlords something in their thick skulls, Lord Caron knew his faith in the Seven had not emerged reinforced from the last couple of disasters. "What is the problem today?"

There were always a hundred problems ready to bite you somewhere painful at King's Landing. And you never had any idea when they were going to strike.

"I need more Goldcloaks to enforce order," the Lord Commander affirmed.

"And I need more assistants, messengers and trusted law-makers," he retorted far more rudely than he should have. "My apologies," Royce said immediately after. "But there are no funds available for the rest of the year."

That was saying quite a few things about the state of the Seven Kingdoms. Fortunately, there was only a fortnight left for this unpleasant year of one hundred and thirty-one years After the Conquest and a shipment of gold they had transferred on the other side of the Narrow Sea should come back in twenty or thirty days.

By the way, Royce had absolutely no desire to trade his current post with the future Master of Coin.

"Apologies accepted, but I really need those men," the Reach Lord fell upon one of the visitor seats with the face of someone completely exhausted. "There are still killers who were on Daemon payroll in liberty and I don't think we can leave them plotting in the streets of Fleabottom. The Seven only know what they will try if we give them the time to lick their wounds. The last loyalists of Rhaenyra, the Faith radicals, the bandits taking the refuge behind our walls...we even hanged five murderers pretending to serve the Black Goat of Qohor yesterday."

"I will talk to several banks," Royce promised. But many were in a worst situation than the Iron Throne anyway – neither Rhaenyra nor Aegon had been shy when it came to seize their gold coffers – and they were in winter. "Do not expect miracles."

* * *

 **Queen Baela Targaryen**

To her pleasant surprise, Baela found that she liked Winterfell and its inhabitants. After her long flight over snowy and empty lands, her hopes had not been high when the home of House Stark came to mind.

Many rumours had spread in the Riverlands the Northern castles were dark and empty places constantly besieged by the fury of the elements. According to the tales, the Northerners chieftains and Lords were loud barbarians and their smallfolk humourless brutes.

So far, the only point she had been able to confirm was 'constantly besieged by the fury of the elements', as the northern winds unleashed their wrath against the centuries-old walls. But Winterfell and the vast town it held were the very opposite of dark and empty. Thousands of fires were joyously burning, providing both light and warmth against the terrible cold. Years of dead wood reserves had been stored for this exact purpose and this killed in the cradle the ideas the Northerners were stupid and had empty skulls.

While the dragons were killing each other and the Lords died in great battles, Lord Stark and his bannersmen were ordering a last harvest, filling their larders with the dozens of big elks they had hunted and repairing their redoubts for the arrival of winter. It was why the first muster ordered by Lord Cregan had arrived so late. And as much as some of her Riverlands bannersmen threw accusations right and left, the Black Queen wished there had been more Noble Houses to think of this between Casterly Rock and Storm's End. There had been so many granaries, farms and caravans burned that the number of deaths caused by the war was the only reason there wasn't mass starvation for the two sides.

Winterfell thus was the first city-castle Baela could see preserved from the bloody war. Northerners in comfortable furs were crowding the large streets, the markets were providing the clansmen and the smallfolk everything they needed to endure the cold season. The gaunt, desperate and hateful expressions which had become so common in the Riverlands were not present here. In fact it was even more jovial atmosphere, because with the old and the young generation away, the men, women and children sworn to House Stark had enough supplies to last between seven and eight years of winter.

For the first time when she had landed with Moondancer, the people of Winterfell had been genuinely happy and curious to see her. It was a very different ambiance from Stone Hedge and the rest of the territories she owned in the South, where every subject from the ten years-old orphan to the eighty name days grey beard wanted something from her or her dragon. Oh, they were respectful and polite, but the South wanted to use her and profit from her rule.

No, Winterfell was not silent and empty but the affairs of the realm she had to deal with were less pressing and far simpler to deal with. The demands and requests which had arrived were not poisoned with the hate and the myriad of complaints so common when she was holding court in her new capital. The Northern petitioners had cunning certainly, but the winter conditions and their very nature did not give them much time for the bowing and the flatteries Vale Lords took for granted.

But the best part of Winterfell, and the one she was walking to, at the moment, was without contest the hot springs of the Great Keep. Or more precisely, the baths warmed by the hot springs which were destined to the prestigious of visitors of Winterfell. Moondancer disagreed, of course. Her growing dragon loved having a crowd around him in ecstasy. Especially when the perks including scratching the scales, polishing the claws, giving dried meat outside the meals and large warm blankets to sleep under in the tower which had been granted to her for the duration of her royal visit.

"You can leave me," she commanded to her escort, who all bowed before taking position on each side of the door next to the big direwolf statues. For the present time, the group of warriors charged to protect her was including only guards of Winterfell. The possibility of sending a Kingsguard with her had been discussed during the last Council before her departure, but it had rapidly been abandoned. Moondancer was not yet strong enough to carry her weight plus another passenger and the essential clothes and messages forming her baggage. And even in the contrary case, the only person her bonded had authorised so far on his back was Rhaena. It was not exactly out of the norm: many young and ancient dragons did not even tolerate other persons coming near dancer. By these standards, Moondancer was extremely well- mannered.

The bath room she entered was emphasizing northern architecture. The stones were soft, warm and of a light grey shade. According to the construction workers of Winterfell, the stone quarries they had been extracted from were about one hundred and fifty leagues northwards, at the limit between the Wolfswood and the great western mountain range of the North. On the left, the statue of a woman held in her immobile hands a stone baby. On the right, seats of stone were available, flanked with new grey stone representations of wolves and other Northern predators.

But in front of her were the really important things. The large warm pool promising comfort and pleasure was there...as well as a thin black-haired woman.

Baela had opened and close the wooden door silently, thus the occupant of the bath was still presenting her back to her as she began removing her clothes. The boots, the two layers of coat, the heavy clothes...suddenly in these warm temperatures provided by the hot springs, it was easy to remember how cold it really was outside and how good it would be to enjoy the summer sun once again on her visage.

By the time the Westerosi Queen had removed everything but a dark black robe – with the three-headed red dragon on her chest, naturally – her undergarments and the simple diadem on her head, the woman finally became aware of her presence.

"Your Grace," the curtsy from Nettles was so badly assured Baela could not help but smile.

"No need for protocol here," the eldest of the twin Targaryen sisters said. "Call me Baela when we're alone."

"Yes, your...Baela."

Nettles blushed as she saw Baela watching her body. Quickly, the former shepherdess emerged from the waters, seized a towel in the Stark colours and covered her body. Too bad for her, Baela had seen everything which mattered.

Frankly, she was not impressed. Baela had seen the portraits of all her father's wives during their early adulthood. Political marriages or not, there was no contestation possible that Queen Rhaenyra her own mother and Lady Royce had been stunning in looks and body before their first pregnancies.

Nettles...Nettles was definitely not of the same mould. Her hairs were long and there was evidence they had never been carefully combed. Despite her confirmed status of dragonseed, no hint of silver or white could be found in this black mane. The colour of her eyes was a dirty shade of orange, her skin was tanned with a few scars here and there and the rest of her body would never be considered 'pretty', even by Northern standards. The less said about her breasts and her legs, the better.

For the ten thousandth time, Baela wondered what had her father thought when he had invited this young woman into his bed. Was it because Queen Rhaenyra had sent him away and he wanted a warrior instead of a highborn Lady to keep him company? Or had there been other reasons, even less acceptable and that she didn't know about?

Unfortunately, her father had not confided his secrets in her or in anyone else before his death. Thus this mystery – like many others – had died with him.

"Maester Selwyn told me you are recovering well from your pregnancy," Baela declared as the Dragonstone born woman looked at her with eyes alternating between defiance and concern. "You and your daughter will suffer no ill effects from your travel in the northern wilderness."

"I suppose you will want Sheepstealer and me in the Riverlands next moon..." The lack of enthusiasm in the former shepherdess' voice was a good hint this was not something she would enjoy.

Baela waited a moment before answering, evaluating the woman who had given birth to the last addition to the ranks of House Targaryen. Nettles' body was muscled, but not overly so. Baela herself had begun to exercise with sword and spear since her escape from Dragonstone, and she could recognise the signs. Her father must have given Daena's mother lessons to defend her life, but her greatest asset was and continued to be Sheepstealer.

"I do not," and surprise came on her interlocutor common's visage. She would have to speak with several Lords to teach her how to hide her emotions, else the Southern Lords were going to devour her the moment she was presented to them. "The peace is sufficiently fragile between Blacks and Greens that I prefer let you stay with your daughter at Winterfell for the next year. My cousin Daeron is smarter than his brother Aegon ever was, but if King's Landing learns we have a dragon big enough to stale Tessarion alone, they are going to panic."

And given the reports and tales she had heard of the first moons of the Dance, this meant assassins, poisons, daggers in the dark and perhaps war.

"You don't want another war," and there was a touch of stupefaction in Nettles' attitude.

"Oh I would gladly accept the head of the last Greens and their favourite traitors if someone was to bring me them next fortnight." Baela admitted. "But the Seven Kingdoms won't resist if there is more bloodshed. Vengeance will have to wait."

She didn't provide the ugly problems and the rider of Sheepstealer didn't ask for them. Honestly, the ruler in her didn't truly know how the realm had not collapsed in the moons after Bosworth Bridge. That the North and the Vale were more or less intact and had not been fought over had enormously helped...but by all rights order had been easier to re-establish than she had thought possible. It may be everyone was sick of war for this decade. Stranger things must have happened in Westeros before her birth.

"What are your intentions towards my daughter?"

And here it was, the issue which had caused the lover of Father to flee across half the realm.

"You daughter is a Princess of the Blood now." Baela told her, removing the diadem from her head and letting her long silver hairs flow freely upon her shoulders. "Before I decide what positions and duties to give her, I will have to see if she is a dragonrider or not. My sister will come with a few dragon eggs after her wedding with Lord Stark's Heir."

If the answer was positive, the young Daena Targaryen may be granted a Lordship in the North where House Targaryen would be free to hatch and train the new generation of dragons. West or east of Long Lake, there were a lot of promising locations which might be fit for their flying mounts. Her Hand had not spoken against it, since she was going to give the New Gift back in payment.

"And if she is not?"

Baela did her best to ignore the temptation of the hot bath waiting for her.

"She will remain second in the line of succession for the Throne." It was a throne which was more shadows and mirrors than hard and true steel, alas. "And she will be trained to be the equal of the founders of our line."

Women had long been forced on a second role since the death of Queen Visenya; it was long time this trend was stopped and reversed. Who knows, maybe Queen Rhaenyra would not have been forced to kill so many and resort to an iron fist in her rule if King Jaehaerys had not excluded women from all the important positions of the Seven Kingdoms.

"I do not want my daughter to become a Queen," and the words of her fellow dragonrider seemed sincere.

This was a wise choice. Baela was one, and hot bath aside, the privileges weren't worth it compared to the thousand-and-one headaches it caused.

* * *

 **Author's note** : Hope everyone enjoyed the chapter. The divisions between Blacks and Greens are not getting smaller, and while it is still winter, the survivors of the Dance are plotting their next moves. It wouldn't do at all to be caught by surprise when/if the next war starts...

More links for the Dance is not Over on P a treon: ww w. p a treon Antony444


	17. Heavy are the Crowns

**Chapter 17**

 **Heavy are the Crowns**

 **Queen Baela Targaryen**

As soon as Moondancer had been able to bear her weight without getting exhausted, flying had been her favourite activity of the day. And since dragons were superb fliers and created to dominate the skies, she did not often hear groans of protestation from her bonded.

Then winter had come for her and Westeros.

Suddenly, flying was not so pleasant anymore and it had been getting worse as the fortnights succeeded to another and the lands of the Riverlands disappeared under the snow.

A year ago, she could have mounted on Moondancer wearing a light cape on top of her usual riding tunic and breeches.

These days if she was mad enough to try it, her body would likely freeze in a few breaths.

The earth under her eyes was cold, white and lifeless.

The sky was grey, colder and she didn't dare order her bonded to soar higher. There were roughly a hundred feet above the ground but the winds were violent and she had difficulties finding her marks in this winter view.

The only good point so far in her journey from Winterfell to Stone Hedge was the predominance of northern winds. Unlike her first journey into the lands governed in her name by the Starks, the wind was pushing her dragon towards her capital. It was somewhat a satisfaction, because flying from Moat Cailin to Winterfell the first time had been a nightmare with contrary winds, small blizzards and a frightening cold.

The Riverlands were far calmer, if she limited her judgement to the weather and only the weather. Five leagues south of the Twins, the Green Fork had ice on it but was almost navigable for the great barges transporting food and supplies to the villages which had their granaries and housing destroyed by the war.

The snow was there, but at worst it would reach the head of a five name days child. At Winterfell, it had reached half the height of the outer walls and workers were frequently forced to remove it least they were unable to open the gates and get out of the city-fortress.

However, as she flew over the forests and the towns of the Riverlands, the untarnished beauty of the kingdom she had just left for the South became more evident. The North was wild, it was dangerous and cold, but it had not suffered like the men, women and the children sworn to House Tully and their bannersmen. Winterfell and the forts nearby were waiting patiently the end of winter, and the only sign of the war was the absent young and old men. The Riverlanders had by contrast bled long and hard for the support they gave to the Black Dragons.

"The Old and New Gods only know where I am going to find the gold to rebuild that..." She murmured in her furs as Moondancer flew over a burned tower. Years ago, this had certainly been the household of a Landed Knight and his family, protecting by oath and sword a score of small habitations. Now it was a black dot surrounded by white. The trees nearby looked untouched so it had likely been the hands of men responsible for this deed. A dragon would have created far more ravage and ashes.

Once the Red Fork was behind her and the day grew darker, the situation was better. Despite the wrath of the winds and the waters, the lands she could observe from the sky were getting better. Many villages were small anthills, repairing collapsed bridges, houses and wells.

While she did not stop as she wanted to arrive to her bed tonight, the cheers she received as Moondancer made one two elegant moves above the head of her subjects were heart-warming.

The days were terribly short in winter. When her bonded landed in front of the gates, the welcoming party had to light scores of torches. Moondancer groaned in exhaustion when she murmured him the long flight was really over. Her dragon was becoming more resistant, but long distances in winter were still a problem.

To her surprise, the reading of several ancient memories of previous Targaryen had revealed this was true for every dragon of the previous generation. Aegon the Conqueror and his sister-wives, the generation of the Conquest, had trained their great dragons to exacting standards. Vhagar and Meraxes had travelled from Dragonstone to Oldtown and from Storm's End to the Wall at their fastest flight speed for months before her ancestors decreed the two newborn dragons were valuable additions to the elder Balerion's massive presence and not hindrances.

For years it had continued, and Maegor the Cruel for all his faults had been boisterous when it came to his beloved Balerion. In one of his royal edicts, the tyrant had given highly detailed plans how and where he had wanted to train the newly-hatched dragons and their riders. Maegor being Maegor and thus half-insane, it had also been a way to have the female dragonriders close to him and possibly in his bed. And naturally, King Jaehaerys had torn apart this edict like all the others.

She was less and less sure this had been a good thing. First, because in one letter Rhaena had been able to recover, the monstrous King had publicly admitted the Dragonpit was only to be the secure haven of the dragons at King's Landing. New hatcheries had been planned in the Vale and the North, in order to breed a formidable force of dragons and dragonriders. These plans had never seen the light of day as the Faith Militant led rebellions after rebellions and to her limited experience they looked deeply impractical. The crazy ideas like the conquest of Pentos and Braavos were not worth mentioning.

Maegor had been completely mad and impossible to restrain after his mother died. But he had tried to return House Targaryen and the dragonriders to something close to the Conquest's strength and flight training.

It only took a glance at the portraits of her grandfather and her great-grandfather to know they had not been warriors. Seven Hells, if they rode their dragon once every seven days and at a slug's pace, it was already a small miracle!

As a result, the battle-trained dragons before the Dance had been her Father's Caraxes and the old Vhagar. A lot of the battles and tragedies who had taken place were forged by this lack of training and experience. House Targaryen had been complacent, bloated and weak, to the point Nettles had been a bigger force-holder with Sheepstealer than Syrax.

This was going to have to change, she reflected as her feet touched the ground and a procession of a hundred men and women formed two large columns in front of the gates to welcome her.

"Your Grace, Stone Hedge is yours," said Lord Cregan Stark and the welcoming party bend the knee before rising once more when she gave the order to stand. Baela didn't like the pointless ceremonies and staying in the cold for no good reason was absolutely pointless.

"Thank you, my Lord Hand," she replied as she returned to her capital under cheers and applauses. By the noise and the number of faces, it seemed the population of her seat had gotten a minor increase. "Are they great affairs I must learn of before next morning?"

A nice 'no' would have been a pleasure, but in these troubled times the Gods and luck were not with her.

"Yes, a Lysene ambassador arrived shortly after your departure for Winterfell. He and his patrons of House Rogare pretend they have you half-brother Viserys in their custody and want a ransom of two millions and a half gold dragons for his release."

"Very funny, Lord Cregan, I did not think you were ready to share humorous stories with the Tolletts..."

But as she turned to look in the grey eyes of the Lord Paramount of the North, there was no sign this was a cheap story destined to cheer her on.

Baela fought against the envy she had to sob and scream. Why had she to pay for the mistakes of her predecessors when her coffers were already so empty?

"Tell me everything."

* * *

 **Ser Harys Bracken**

After a long ride of five days in the snow, Harys was ready to sell his soul for a warm meal when he saw the fires of the village. He had always fancied himself an experienced jouster. Since he had sworn his vows and left the Great Sept as an anointed Knight, the horses he mounted for battle or for the hunts were answering him before he needed to use his spurs or harsher measures. But for all his experience with horses, he had never ridden when snow fell on the valleys, hills and fields of the Riverlands.

Harys didn't remember when it had snowed in such quantities. There were winters, and there was _this_ winter. There were feet of snow wherever you rode, and houses and septs collapsing under the weight of the ice. On his way to Bracken's Fort, the whispers in the villages were spreading the same incredulity. Except the very old grey beards and the elderly grandmothers past seventy name days, no one remembered a winter like this one. The smallfolk who remembered having endured the glacial winds and the fury of the elements could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare for every village.

In the middle of this, his mission had become quickly to reassure those narrow-minded farmers that this dreadful winter was not a judgement of the Seven. No, the Father was not calling up the northern cruel winds to punish them for their sins.

The last steps when he dismounted from his brown horse were particularly horrible on his legs and the rest of his body. He was exhausted and the salutes he made to the sentinels at the gates and the courtyard must have betrayed his fatigue for every man and woman he met let him remove his winter cloak and protection layers before he sat to the grand table of the sole hall inside these walls. This was a painful reminder of what his family, his House and his armsmen had lost. Bracken's Fort, formerly the ancient holdfast of House Chyttering, was no Stone Hedge. It was too small, too cramped and it could boast perhaps a fifth or a sixth of the servants they had been able to call on their ancestral lands.

The meat, the bread and the ale he swallowed in turn gave his body a new vitality, but it also relinquished the hate in his heart. Ten, a hundred or a thousand years, he would never forget the Blackwoods and the traitors of the Black Whore and the only apologies he would accept would be their broken corpses impaled on the ramparts of Stone Hedge.

"You arrived just in time, Ser Harys," began a young armsmen with long brown hairs and a small beard. His blue eyes shone with good humour and intelligence. "The wind has grown stronger since morning, and the older guards are saying their knees are more painful than ever. A lot of snow is going to fall before the next moon."

The Bracken Knight nodded morosely. He had not expected spring to arrive in the next fortnight, but more bad weather was not filling him with delight and the need to shout his joy outside.

The rest of the conversation was fairly normal. A food convoy had arrived while he was patrolling in his Lord's service. As usual, while there was enough grain and other supplies for the village to last awhile, smallfolk were complaining.

"Bunch of loud bastards I know," proclaimed an aged warrior named Roland. "They protest when they can't live in the best quarters and use the great warehouse, they protest when they have a new Lord and they scream bloody murder if they're asked to work to pay for their food and their clothes."

About three scores of Knights and soldiers grumbled in approval.

"Now wonder half of the realm seceded when you have scum like this as servants..."

"Vhagar burned the wrong targets in its raids, I swear..."

As interesting as these conversations were, he was not able to stay it and enjoy the warmth atmosphere of the hall. A servant wearing the embroidered horse atop his chest came as he finished his ale to deliver him the command of his liege.

"Lord Harrold is awaiting you in his solar, Ser Harys," the glimmer in this lowborn insolent's eyes and his satisfied smirk told him a lot about the reception this servant expected him to receive.

The tired Knight acknowledged the order and stood up, saluted the rest of the men assembled before climbing the steps towards his cousin's quarters.

The walk was not long, but he had to use a torch, for the stairs were treacherous and House Bracken could not afford to let candles and other sources of light at regular intervals in the castle. Winter had come too quickly and House Chyttering before them had not prepared for the coming winter. They had been too busy dying and as a result it was House Bracken which paid the price.

Truly, the King by giving them these lands had been an insult to deepen the wound. The harvests and the fields had been burned, half of the granaries were piles of useless stones, the grain had been stolen or sold to bandits pretending to be merchants and the reserves of salted food were insufficient as pigs, chicken and rabbits were disappearing when an official rider came near their farms.

The welcome he received once his Lord's cellar was not in the nature to get rid of these dark thoughts.

"I thought I told you to come here and deliver your report first, Harys," the scowl of Lord Harrold Bracken, Master of Bracken's Fort and unfortunately the man who had been the highest in the succession when the bloodshed stopped. Brown-haired, brown eyes and the horse of their banners on his plastron, Harrold was very much a Bracken. Somehow, and Harys was not sure how, he had celebrated eight and twenty name days in spite of numerous murder attempts from the Blackwoods and the Tullys.

"There is nothing to report," he said in his most respectful tone –which was not a lot. With a monumental effort of will he didn't add 'but you knew it very well' or 'stop pestering your smallfolk with unreasonable demands'. "Between all the hamlets, lone farms and villages I have patrolled, we could perhaps gather a couple of hundred smallfolk. The best among them would be the deserters, I think. They held something sharp and dangerous in their hands once before running for their lives and may remember which part you have to point at the enemy."

"This is not good enough!" The scowl was even more pronounced. "Next morning you will go the villages of Black Rock and Circling Water and you will find the men we need!"

Harys tried not to grit his teeth. He had gone two moons ago to these isolated villages and the only source of change was the carriages they transported from Bracken's Fort to feed them.

"My Lord...there are no more men there. Only babes and old senile fools."

House Chyttering and the deceased Knightly Houses under their rule had taken three out of four young men in their first muster and never came back, probably eaten by a dragon or ambushed by a rival House. The next Lord had taken the remaining men before perishing too in battle against one army or another. And the last surviving boy had died with the last guards trying to stop Vhagar from ravaging his lands.

There was simply no company to train as a base of an army anymore in this region of the Riverlands.

"Do you want to let the Blacks get away with the usurpation of our lands?" The question was uttered in a low threatening growl and Harys retreated two steps away from the small working desk.

"No I don't," he admitted. Stone Hedge would always remain his home. "But I don't want to die either and this is what is going to happen if we muster some three hundred smallfolk and a hundred warriors to attack the rebels."

"The Iron Throne will support us," and the Knight was frightened by the expression on his cousin's face. King Daeron had said openly the contrary during their sole and only private meeting. "The South must support us, they will have no choice."

The second sentence was more spoken like a prayer than a fact.

* * *

 **Lord Larys Strong**

Larys had been somewhat worried for the better part of the first moon of the year that the new Hand of the King would not be skilled enough in governance to provide wise counsel and help King Daeron in these difficult times.

Yes, he had some spies at Longtable but then he had a lot of agents at Storm's End in the last decade. None of the latter had told him Lord Borros Baratheon was a narrow-minded hammer-man who could not be trusted when the time came to lead an army.

Fortunately, the reports of the men and women who had met Lord Marq Merryweather had not proved incorrect in this instance. Once the various compliments about the wine, the artisans who had worked on their clothes and the food had been expedited, the Lord of Longtable answered the first royal question with words the deceased father-in-law of Daeron Targaryen would never have used.

"Since you asked my humble opinion your Grace, my duties as a Lord of the Seven Kingdoms force me to say the civil war which had just ended was a monumental mistake."

There was much to say about the behaviour of the Reach Lord in front of him. Larys had seen Knights stand tall and stone-faced before their liege. Marq Merryweather was not like them. Seated on his large and comfortable seat, the man looked like more a heavy Merchant Prince than a highborn of the Seven Kingdoms.

"Explain," the tone of the King was not warm at all when he demanded his vassal to reveal the reasoning of this half-treasonous assertion.

"Gladly, your Grace," said the new Hand of the King, the insignia of his function shining around his neck. "The problem lies in dragonfire...and the terror it has created throughout the realm."

"I do not think I follow your mind, Lord Merryweather," countered Lord Royce Caron. The Master of Laws had taken a far more offensive posture than Lord Marq. "From the Queen to the hermit septons on the Three Sisters, everyone I think knows of the dragonfire's power. The Field of Fire is not a pleasant tale to tell, but it is one known to every child and adult of Westeros."

On this Larys was perfectly ready to agree.

"Indeed and I will make the remark the grass on this dreary battlefield has not yet grown green and fertile in over one hundred and thirty years." There was a smile on Marq's cheeks and mouth; it did not reach his eyes. "But smallfolk and Lords alike thought that when the Conqueror was crowned at Oldtown, these times of destruction were over. There was some bloody massacres under the Cruel, but it was evident the man was insane and Jaehaerys II the Wise proved after him Targaryen monarchs could be great. As a result, the lands of Westeros thought there was an informal pact for the dragons to be the guardians of the kingdom. King Viserys' brother helped this image, for he went to fight against the pirates and the Free Cities..."

"But then the dragons were unleashed against the granaries and the castles they were supposed to protect," yes, Larys had already heard of these feelings, though the Reacher Lord appeared to give them more importance than him. Of course, Larys was in King's Landing and the capital and its surroundings were already filled with enemy agents and killers. "That's what you are trying to say, Lord Merryweather?"

"This is my point, yes," the Lord of Longtable answered calmly before redirecting his eyes towards the King. "It is certainly difficult to acknowledge, but the Reach and the other kingdoms before the Conquest didn't give their swords to the Conqueror because they believed his vision of Westeros was better than theirs. Maybe there were many who thought it was a noble dream, but eight out of ten men great desire was to avoid the wrath of the dragons. After decades of peace, we believed in the dream...but the Dance killed it."

King Daeron poured himself a cup of gold wine before resuming the conversation with his Hand.

"I assume you have an idea to...resurrect the dream." The second part of the sentence was pronounced carefully. No one around the Council's table was a great admirer of the Faith but you never knew when someone had a religious crisis and started to spread poisoned whispers in the dark alleys.

"We need a lasting peace," declared decisively Lord Marq Merryweather. "And I am not speaking of these long moons of winter where military campaigns are impossible. For all the destruction the realm has suffered, I believe two long summers of peace are a necessity."

Larys would love to cheer and clap his hands in a festive mood.

"With due respect, my Lord Hand, achieving this feat will be a hard and difficult task." It was a massive understatement; miraculous was the right word. "There are thousands on both sides of the new frontier burning to avenge their dead and end their feuds in blood and flames."

"But it is one which must be done," replied without hesitation his interlocutor.

"Except the fear created by dragons fighting against dragons, there must be other reasons," said Daeron I in a voice which implied strongly these reasons better exist.

"There are," admitted Lord Marq. "The one I find the most pertinent is that we are likely to lose the next conflict, not win it."

"I have Tessarion and the power of the Reach behind me," by his expression, the Master of the Iron Throne was not appreciating at all the way this conversation was taking. "We have also the Lannisters and their sizeable fortune, the legitimacy of the capital and the martial abilities of the Stormlands."

"But the Blacks will have two mature dragons when winter ends to defeat your noble mount, your Grace. Moondancer will be able to force a stalemate in an aerial fight, while the other dragon burns the fields of the South. In addition, the North and the Vale are incredibly difficult to invade and it will be years before we have the ships to threaten them. I'm sorry but if a fast invasion of the Riverlands doesn't force the Blacks to demand peace, we may be forced in a long war and the realm will not survive it."

To his surprise, it was Royce Caron who winced first.

"A long war is not a good thing. Dorne stood idle during the Dance, but they were ruled by Prince Qoren. There is a new Princess at Sunspear, and she may smell weakness at an inopportune time."

"Let's pray they don't," Daeron spoke grimly. "We have few boons to convince the Dornish to remain quiet, and I will not unite my line to these vipers..."

* * *

 **Princess Aliandra Martell**

The previous Prince of Dorne, aka her Father, had not been a beloved man. The smallfolk had not enjoyed his presence. He was too cold, did not show his passions and the taxes he imposed were not cheap for their purses.

The Lords had not loved him. He had refused to go to war as long as he was alive. Prince Qoren Martell had been a schemer and cold, not someone they would invite for the marriage of their sons or their daughters.

Aliandra was young, but she was not unable to understand that her ascension to the title of Princess of Dorne was going to be plagued by difficulties. Her Father – though in her brain he deserved other and less glorious epithets – had made sure of that.

It had only taken mere days to realise she had realised how badly underestimated the problems waiting to bury her in the hungry sands.

Lord Uller, as expected, was proving one of the most vocal opponents against her rule. It was a pleasant thing Prince Qoren had not been a man willing to forget his mistakes in the pleasure of the flesh. If the Lord of Hellholt had a bastard of House Martell to side with him, she was convinced he would have already done it.

But the Ullers were just the biggest nuisance. There were hundreds more and her uncle brought more each day as ravens were exchanged. And it looked this day was not going to bring pleasant news.

"A Knight of Starfall and a Knight of High Hermitage fought each other before the gates of Blackmont," announced her uncle in the largely silent great hall of Sunspear. Manfrey Gargalen was anything but amused. "According to Lord Blackmont, the warrior from High Hermitage accused the other Knight of using threats to rob the hamlets at the very limits of his lands."

"I'm sure the Knight sworn to Starfall has a different story to tell," she said. For a strange reason, there always was some 'insignificant detail' which was forgotten by the culprit.

"In this case, the man could not," contradicted the Lord of Salt Shore. "He was killed in the duel."

The Princess of Dorne hid a yawn behind before answering.

"This duel was illegal, wasn't it?"

"Lord Blackmont swears in his raven he didn't give his assent."

Good, it rendered the affair easier to judge. But it was not like there were no precedents. The Sept-anointed Knights of the cadet branch of the Daynes were not fond of the soldiers serving the Swords of the Morning and many had already paid the price of treachery in the last decades.

"In this case Lord Blackmont can execute him or give him the chance to take the Black. The killer lands are forfeited and half will go the family of his victim. I won't have my swords slaughtering each other without the consent of their liege Lords."

"The Master of High Hermitage is not going to be pleased," her uncle warned her.

"Then he should better control his Knights," she replied angrily. "Because the entire affair looks like the Starfall knight was on his way to the Prince's Pass when he was ambushed by an assassin." She raised her head to look Manfrey directly in the eyes. "Next raven," she ordered.

"Lord Wyl wants more men to reinforce his levies," this time both uncle and niece grimaced.

"What is the man thinking?" This was not the tenth time she asked loudly the question. It was not even the hundredth. At first, this belligerence was amusing and a bit worthy of respect. Now it had stopped to be that and more. "The Marches are covered in snow and I don't think anything but mountain goats can live up there when it is so cold."

"According to his raven," the hand of her uncle pointed at a message badly written. She might feel generous and say the application was good for a boy of five name days. "Lord Wyl thinks the winter is almost over."

Aliandra scoffed and made a gesture towards the overture in the walls, where the grey skies were projecting a dark weather and the sparse rain was falling on the roofs of Sunspear.

"The maesters will be happy to know all their calculus and studies are wrong. And I'm sure Lord Wyl will be happy to know the Reach's spring is happening under feet of snow."

Every Dornish bought the warmest clothes his purse could afford and the cold winds relentlessly assaulted the shores of her Princedom. If winter was about to end next fortnight, then she was ready to swear the vows of a septa. No, once again Lord Wyl was taking his desires for the reality. Winter was there and it was going to last one or two more years in the best of cases.

"Reply him politely the time for war is not yet upon us," if she ordered Dorne to go to war now, the Princedom armies would be buried by the avalanches a score of leagues before they reached Nightsong or Blackhaven. "And remind him politely Uncle, that House Martell will not pay his gambling debts."

"With pleasure," Houses Wyl and Gargalen had never been close but in the last generations they had feuded a lot and would have probably done worse if they were not separated by half of Dorne. "And this leaves us, with our last letter: Myr."

"Myr?" She repeated incredulously. "We have not armed them or hired their sellswords..."

"Exactly," replied the Lord of Salt Shore. "We sent a lot of bloodthirsty young men to Tyrosh and Lys in order for them to learn how to wage war. But now the Myrish worry their sellsword companies are going to be outnumbered on the battlefields of the Disputed Lands."

"Oh by the Rhoyne..."This was a complication she had not seen coming. "I am ready to listen to your suggestions, then. It would be amusing for us to send Uller and Wyl fight against the Free Cities but I don't think they would obey my commands..."

* * *

 **Author's Note** : As you can see the Brackens are not very happy they have been spoiled from their ancestral lands...and there are many people on both sides of the frontiers who have huge grievances. Add the Dornish, the Lysene and other factions, and you have the recipe for a resumption of hostilities the moment it is feasible to campaign...

More links for the Dance is not Over on P a treon: ww w. p a treon Antony444


	18. The Bracken Incident

**Chapter 18**

 **The Bracken Incident**

 **Ser Harys Bracken**

Bracken's Fort was too calm. The shiver Harys felt in his neck after that realisation was not due to the cold or snowflakes. But as he watched the new holdfast of his House in the distance, there was nothing he could do. Whatever his Lord had done, he was far too late to stop it.

He still gestured to the two Knights behind him to increase their pace. The tiny shiny orb that was the winter sun was almost at its zenith and the northern wind was as unpleasant as ever. He was not going to kill the poor horses he had taken with him to visit the villages of Black Rock and Circling Water, no. But the miserable band of deserters and outlaws he had found needed to understand he was in charge and that abandoning their duties deserved punishment.

"Faster you maggots!" barked one of his men-at-arms. "Faster or your rations will go to the horses tonight!"

They had to present a strange picture to the lone old women turning their heads to watch their slow progression on this miserable excuse of a road. Three Knights – including himself – one leading the column, one at the rear and one protecting the left flank. Three Knights in mail and steel, escorting two scores of bandit-looking men with rusted weapons and old armours which had to be ten years old or more.

The last leagues of their ride were done in a land of calm and silence. The village surrounding Bracken's Fort was looking like it was abandoned, with only the old grey beards, ugly old hags and a few children to prove the contrary. The snow was deeper than usual; the work of several fortnights to make the passage of chariots, horses and men easier had clearly been abandoned.

The gates of Bracken's fort should have been opened upon their arrival. Instead they were closed. Harys' knowledge of the patrols on top of the tower allowed him to see a single man rushing down the stairs to warn of their arrival. It was not good.

Harys and his good-for-nothing deserter levies had approached slowly and not discreetly the castle. Alarm should have been raised several turn of hourglasses before this moment. Where were the rest of the Knights? Where were the men in fighting age he had been forced to threaten or buy the loyalty in the last year?

"Open, in the name of Ser Harys Bracken, Shield of Bracken's Fort!" shouted one of his Knights, more impatient than him to take a well-deserved rest.

The wait before the gates opened was long, terribly so. If there had been sixty or seventy able men, the work should have been done rapidly...so they weren't there. Harys Bracken gritted his teeth. So his liege Lord had decided to not wait his return before launching his first raid in the Black-held Riverlands.

It took three more orders before they were able to ride or walk into the deserted courtyard.

"Where is Lord Harrold?" Harys asked immediately to the first guard he saw as he dismounted.

"He departed five days ago to punish the servants of the Black whore," the old idiot who had to be in his fiftieth year had the gall to smile as he delivered the information.

This was exactly what he had feared.

"How many did he have with him?" He asked and his displeasure had to be obvious for the guard's smile disappeared and step by step he retreated in direction of the dungeon.

"Thirty Knights and sixty sworn swords," this was worse than he had feared; his Lord had, except the patrols and the escort for the food convoys, really taken everyone for this mad endeavour. "But our Lord is a great battle-commander surely he will defeat the Northern heretics with one hand behind his back!"

 _No, he will not_ , thought Harys. Lord Harrold Bracken had not been of the disastrous campaign which ended at Bosworth Bridge. He had not seen the crimson river where thousands of corpses floated. He had not tasted the despair of the men who saw their allies be massacred by roaring barbarians. And as far as he knew, his liege had not commanded a small or a great army in any war.

Maybe his dark thoughts were unwarranted. The weather conditions were bad, so it was possible to make raids on the other of the unfortified frontier now cutting the Riverlands in two. Pillaging one or two villages sworn to House Tully was not difficult, and if they weren't any survivors the Blacks' accusations would be empty words in the winter winds.

Alas, Harys didn't believe an instant Lord Harrold had this mind as the memories of their previous discussions played in his mind.

"I need to speak to Maester Hoster." He said while handing his horse to a young boy who looked afraid of his own shadow. "He's still in his library, isn't he?"

The grey-robed man was on a normal day useless, but in this case he should accept to send a raven to King's Landing to warn the capital of his lord's actions. The maester had been raised at Pinkmaiden, and would not want war to resume in the Riverlands...

"Lord Harrold took Maester Hoster with him, Ser," announced one of the old female cooks as he entered the hall and sat on one of the many unoccupied seats. "Nine out of ten ravens went with him in their cages."

Seven Hells, his cousin had prepared his raid well. All the Knights who might have protested his heavy-handed and unauthorised orders were away. The force he had mustered to cross the border was devoted to him so there would be no dissent. With all the ravens of the Bracken's Fort with him, there was no way to warn the King in time. Dragons were fast, but even they would need one day or two in winter to arrive here and certainly one more day to find the raiding party. By then, Lord Harrold and his men would already be in Black lands and arriving with a dragon would be akin to a declaration of war.

"In this case, tell Ser Lyn to prepare himself to ride tomorrow at dawn. He must ride to the capital in all haste and sound the alarm..."

In the mean time, he was going to prepare the defences of Bracken's Fort with two scores of former deserters. For if they were forced to fight the Blacks again, this fort was going to be their first target...

* * *

 **Queen Baela Targaryen**

If she had been on foot, she might never have found the assassins in the middle of these snow-covered hills.

Fortunately for her and unfortunately for them, she was riding Moondancer, and from her position in the sky the raiders were not good enough to escape her search.

They had seen her, of course. The terrible wind and the cold forced her bonded to fly low, without the clouds to hide them. At this height, a dragon could not be mistaken for a great eagle or another species of prey bird.

Three arrows flying in her direction confirmed the enemy had seen her. It was all it did, however. Maybe some elite archers of the Summer Isles and the Dornish Marches had the strength and the bows to hit a dragon at this distance, but the men fleeing below her had not the weapons or the training to accomplish this exploit. The arrows fell down without touching anything and she didn't order Moondancer to take evasive action.

"Ah, they are trying to divide their forces and ride south as fast as they can," the young Queen whispered.

It was not a bad strategy, admittedly. After putting the little village of Nya's Ford to the torch and massacring its smallfolk, these Green oath-breakers had to know her forces were going to pursue them until their heads were placed on long pikes at Stone Hedge.

It was not a bad strategy...if your opponent wasn't a dragonrider, several of your men weren't lagging behind on foot and the snow hampered your retreat. The infantry had not a prayer to cross the frontier today. So she ignored them and went directly after the right column, which had the gall to show a banner where the decapitated head of a black dragon had been weaved.

Baela made a feint for the two archers in range to launch their arrows in what they believed to be a frontal attack before the real assault.

"Manaraxevys," she murmured to Moondancer, before giving him a warm feeling for their bond.

Moondancer changed course and took the cavalry on their right. The enemy Knights had not the time to retaliate before the dragonfire engulfed and consumed them. Six men and six horses were dead, and she ordered her bonded to return eastwards for the other column.

By then, the retreat of the Green raiding party had turned into a rout. The foot soldiers had seen the flames killing the mounted warriors commanding them. As most of them were carrying swords and axes with the long spear here and there, they knew they had no chance and the formation broke and each man tried to run in a different direction.

Baela didn't try to command a dragonfire pass on them. These raiders would be dealt later by her Riverlands bannersmen or by Moondancer. As it was, there were more important enemies to kill.

The second column of cavalry was killing its horses in a vain attempt to reach the frontier. Without dragon, they might have a chance. The great brown oak marking the frontier was but three hills away.

"Manaraxevys!" Baela spoke again and new flames were breathed by Moondancer. The horses, mad with terror, threw down three of their masters and tried to avoid the pyre promised for them. The half-score of knights and freeriders broke, reacting desperately in the hope one or two warriors could avoid her vigilance.

This was a forlorn hope for them. After what they had done to her people, Baela was in no mood to let them escape. As much as the roasted corpses disgusted her, she had to send a message to the Greens or soon every Knight and Lord of the Green-held Crownlands and Reach would believe it was acceptable to raid her realm.

This didn't stop them from screaming insults and House words. Some weren't known to her, but House Bracken battle-cries were. They must have not accepted well her royal order to make Stone Hedge the new capital.

One of the last cavaliers to remain standing planted his banner in the snow, drew his sword and screamed in a voice so loud she couldn't help but hear his defiance.

"Black Queen! I challenge you to a trial by combat! In the name of the Seven, come down and let the Warrior prove your cause is just!"

Baela snorted and by her bond, she felt Moondancer's amusement at the japing of the soon-to-be-dead raider. Trying to remember the information gathered by Lord Cregan, she concluded this had to be the new Lord Bracken. How had her hand described him before this attack? Something about the fury of an angry stallion and the intelligence of a fish, she believed...

Moondancer made a short circle and then she gave a third time her order.

"Manaraxevys!"

The last horses and men died screaming in dragonfire. What? Did the raiders seriously hope she was going to offer them a duel when their lack of honour had been proved beyond doubt? These butchers had violated the peace and now they had to pay the price.

"Let's go in pursuit of the infantry, bonded. I want to make sure the strength of this raiding party is not going back home."

Some might argue letting some survivors limp back home would send a message, but if none of them came back and their heads were exposed on pikes on the frontier, it would give another message.

 _If you take the next step you die_.

* * *

 **Lady Alysanne Blackwood**

Despite the snow, the earth had turned charred black on an impressive expanse. It was a small act to remind them that while the dragon of their Queen was still young by the standard of the great beasts of the Conquest, it was growing and its flames were deadly.

Not that Alysanne complained. The dead were belonging to House Bracken and as far as she was concerned, these betrayers could get themselves roasted every day if they fancied it.

"We should cross the frontier and burn the new Bracken's Fort," said her nephew in a vibrant voice. "Burn one or two villages too, the Brackens need to learn the error of their ways."

Alysanne didn't nod in approval like the dozens of archers surrounded her did. Yes, she was proud of our nephew, who was now an accomplished commander at an age most squires dreamt their masters authorised to use steel during their training. But her nephew Benjicot, now nicknamed Bloody Ben from Winterfell to Sunspear, had not had the time to assimilate her lessons in politics and the tactics linking them together.

"We could," she affirmed in a reasonable tone. "We could burn their fort, their villages and their families. And after razing them we would be in the same situation: the blue dragon would come from King's Landing and burn us as we try to go back to our lands."

"The Queen would protect us."

Queen Baela probably would...and then the young woman would send them all to the Night's Watch for having the temerity to disobey her orders.

"The risks are too great. Should the Queen decline to support us, we would suffer the fate of these Green raiders."

Benjicot swore something rude and Alysanne feigned to not have heard it. Her nephew was young...in time he would learn ruling his lands was not a straightforward affair like a battle.

"Do we know if Lord Harrold Bracken was among these raiders?"

"The Queen thinks a man looking like him tried to challenge her to a duel," many Blackwood sworn swords and archers laughed at the foolishness of the deed. "But dragonfire is worse than wildfire and all we have left is bones. This raid cost them heavily though, whether it was him or not. Moondancer killed over a hundred men and one score of horses."

"Good," Ben smiled viciously. "Very good, I wish I could be at court when the Green usurper of King's Landing will hear the news."

Alysanne had more peaceful wishes. Like hoping 'King Daeron' was not a fool war-lover like his eldest brothers. These two dragonriders had waged the first years of the Dance like they were the only persons who mattered in the entire realm and their reigns of terror had killed thousands of smallfolk.

A rider interrupted this necessary conversation.

"My Lord, My Lady, our scouts have found someone alive in the grove one league east of here."

They left half of their mounts and men to gather what was left of the burned corpses and rode at a leisurely pace in the direction of the trees. The Manderly horses they had bought were not destined to be used in jousting, melee or battle, but they had a lot of endurance in winter conditions and every Noble House could feed them with what was left of their granaries and old fruits.

When her scouts came into view, the identity of the prisoner was not difficult to guess. A large furred grey robe covered the man from head to toe and a brilliant chain was around his neck. And twenty feet away from the circle of Blackwood warriors guarding him, there was a chariot with many raven cages.

If the man was not the maester of Bracken's Fort, then he certainly looked like a well-dressed impostor.

"How many ravens did he sent before you captured him?" Her nephew interrogated their Captain.

"Seven or eight, but we shot down five of them before they could fly away..."

This was not good. Depending on the behaviour of the two castles receiving this destination, forces were going to be mustered again from the Crownlands or the Reach.

The master of the ravens chose this moment to intervene in the conversation.

"I told them my birds were not carrying messages of great importance..."

Several men and women snorted or smirked. Alysanne was handed a damaged roll and read it out loud.

"Bracken's Fort under attack from considerable Black forces..." Lord Harrold Bracken, it seemed, had little love for the truth and explaining his real actions to his King. "And he has the gall to say his messages are not of great importance..."

Ben stayed on his horse with a thoughtful expression. "I wonder...how do you kill a treacherous maester? Is it the gallows or the axe?"

"You can't do that!" The rat of the Citadel seemed genuinely shocked that they were going to kill him. "Maesters swear vows to their Lord...I had no choice but to obey..."

His eyes tried to look in the eyes of the Blackwood scouts and archers, maybe attempting to find some mercy or compassion.

He found none.

"You obeyed and your Lord massacred innocents. And by sending your ravens, you intended to start another war where thousands more would die."

Alysanne smirked.

"But then it is no problem for all your Oldtown Order, isn't it? Between House Hightower and the Citadel, you sided with the Greens and tore apart the Seven Kingdoms."

"This is completely untrue!"

She didn't waste her time answer this big lie. Instead she turned to her nephew.

"The rope or the axe?"

Ben dismounted before replying.

"We have a lot of trees ten feet away and I won't dirty the steel of a good blade with his blood..." The Lord of Raventree Hall gave a good punch in the man's belly when he tried to escape the vigilance of his guards. "Take his ravens and everything of value, this maester won't need them anymore..."

* * *

 **Queen Baela Targaryen**

Rhaena was beautiful in her wedding dress. The long red robe had been a special command from Myr and had cost an exorbitant price, but it espoused her sister's body nicely. The Targaryen cloak was adding a regal touch and three rubies around her neck proved the dragon was as elegant as it was deadly.

"You should wear red and black more," Baela said seriously, verifying by the same occasion the rings on her sister's fingers were adjusted like in her souvenirs. Many of them had been in their mother's collection and a grand wedding was just the first event they could walk with them in public. There were amethysts to compliment their violet eyes, onyx jewels for the black scales of the dragons, the rubies for the flames of the dynasty and white shining diamonds for the prestige and the magnificence of it.

"No, this is your queenly privilege, remember?"

Baela stuck her tongue and Rhaena laughed. Yes, she loved dressing in red and black...although she was doing it less and less since her crowning. Politics demanded every advantage she could seize and unfortunately if judging the affairs of the day in a blue robe was necessary to appease some Vale Lords, then by the Old and New Gods Baela was choosing the dress. It was less painful than to explain to hundreds of smallfolk that the ships transporting their food supplies had been delayed for several weeks due to a trade dispute.

"Well for today it is you who have the 'privilege', Rhae," she remarked to her little sister – and yes Rhaena was only younger than her by several heartbeats. By a tradition which was so old and so widespread it was almost a law, the woman and the man about to be wed had to outshine the attires of the assembly gathered to see their union. Every Lord, Lady, Queen and Knight had come in her or his finest doublet, robe and tunic, but there was a fine line to not cross. It was why at the moment her dress was of a paler shade of red, her diadem was incredibly modest with a single ruby and she didn't bear half of the Crown jewels she could afford for this wedding.

"And I will give it to you back tomorrow," said Rhaena with a humorous expression and without a single trace of regret. It didn't surprise her: Rhaena far preferred yellow clothes to red ones and purple to black. Unfortunately, much as it was elegant to support their violet eyes with them, purple clothes in general were hellishly costly, something to do with Tyrosh cornering the market on the dyeing. Rhaena owned a few robes plus the weaving artworks Mother had left them, but these had to be one half of said robes in Westeros. At least there were still the options to buy more; Myr and Tyrosh still traded with her kingdom, unlike Lys.

"Time to go to the altar," and her twin breathed loudly before Baela opened the door and the handmaidens helped her put the finishing touches before helping carrying the dress.

The descent of the stairs was dignified...that was what she would pretend if asked the question, obviously. In practise, their expensive robes needed to arrive pristine and unwrinkled for the big ceremony.

"There have been whispers from your admirers you didn't shout loudly 'Dracarys' during your latest exploits..." It was idle chat and more for the ears of their servants and the Lords who paid them to have priceless information on their lives.

"Oh I had no intention to entertain the Greens...you know given that they all died running away."

In reality, it was nothing of the sort, of course. While the bond between dragon and master gave her great control over Moondancer, she still needed to give him vocal instruction from time to time. And in the tumult of battle, her dragon really didn't need to hear a thousand soldiers bellowing 'Dracarys' and develop the idea it was nice to carbonise some humans when it was not the case.

It was her father who had told her of this problem when she was eight, and Baela had not forgotten the lesson. The moment Moondancer had been in age to understand her sentences she had invented several Valyrian-sounding words and trained her bonded to react to them. Rhaena had started recently the same training for her Morning.

Truly, ordering 'Dracarys' to your flame-breathing mount was awe-striking for foreigners and outsiders who had never been close to a dragon, but it was completely predictable. And being predictable had seen House Targaryen divided and a realm torn asunder. It was best to avoid it at all costs.

"Ready?" She demanded as the noise of the assembly waiting for them began to be heard and their progression stopped at the end of a corridor which had once belonged to the decimated House Bracken.

"Ready, my Queen," replied mischievously Rhaena and they arrived in a far more crowded area of Stone Hedge and hundreds of guards, servants and knights bowed largely. The great doors opened and a herald began to recite the titles of Rhaena. For the first time of her life, her twin was announced before her...and for an instant Baela wondered if she had been the younger of the two before slightly shaking her head in amusement. What was done was done, and the past could not be altered.

The hall they advanced into was unrecognisable from its normal state. A great red carpet was covering the ground between them and the altar where seven septons waited. Great tapestries which had been stored in Vale vaults were seen renovated for this great wedding. Between the candles and the torches, the silver and the gold were shining like a thousand suns. Her court had come in their best clothes, and given that it was winter every Noble House of importance in the Black Kingdom had decided to use long and elaborated attires.

"Long live House Targaryen!"

"Long live the Queen!"

"Long live the Princess!"

"The dragon and the direwolf!"

But the voices of the assembly were rapidly overwhelmed by the songs of the septas and the children in the choirs behind the septons. Baela had to admit she hadn't the faintest idea which song it was; study of the _Seven-Pointed Star_ had not been in her tutor's mind – but the song was majestic and enthralling. At regular interruptions, trumpets resonated.

Their procession continued until they climbed the final two steps and the two sisters dominated the gathering. On an average day, this was where Baela and her main councillors dined; today an immaculate marble altar had been installed, surrounded by hundreds of winter flowers and extensive decorations.

Trumpets sounded again, and it was the turn of the Northern procession to come in, Lord Cregan Stark leading the column with his son Rickon to his right. For this great celebration, the Starks and their bannersmen had abandoned the great heavily-furred cloaks and coats which always made them look like bears and had replaced them by fashionable grey-white tunics. Beards had been trimmed and hairs cut, and in the current atmosphere they looked more civilised than the River or Vale Lords.

Acclamations and music accompanied the North arrival, a bit more bawdy and joyous than her sister had been. Cregan Stark as always moved like a force of nature – or a direwolf stalking his prey, depending on you asked. His son by contrast looked like a young and untested warrior, though his chest was muscled and his arms had to be twice the width of Baela's. For his wedding the Heir of Winterfell had completely shaved his face; as a consequence his dark Stark hairs and his deep grey eyes really attracted the gazes. His cloak was grey and a massive direwolf was howling to the moon on it.

When he and Rhaena arrived side by side, he kissed her hand and the entire hall cheered and shouted its joy.

"My dear children..." The smile on Septon Robar was sincerity itself. Baela congratulated herself to have chosen this man as the new chief-priest of Stone Hedge. Tolerant and popular, the old white-haired man had been a source of uninterrupted optimism in the dark fortnights and had not hesitated lending his help to distribute the grain and the meat of his office to his modest parishioners. "We are gathered here today under the gaze of the Old and New Gods for the holy and joyful union of two young noble souls. Marriage is particularly kind and blessed by the Gods, for it allows you to share your Houses strength, standing together to face the world and life hand-in-hand. We must never forget it is the union of the Father and the Mother which is the source of the stability and the prosperity of the Seven Heavens..."

The septon had promised a short discourse and for a royal marriage he held his word: as fast as he had started, the great question arrived for Rhaena.

"Princess Rhaena Targaryen, do you swear to take Lord Rickon Stark for husband in love and blessed union, to stand by his side until death tears you apart?"

"I do."

* * *

 **King Daeron Targaryen**

Daeron had known when he had elevated some Lords to their current titles he had made several mistakes. Most of it he had attributed it to the fact he didn't like said bannersmen and was forced to play the game of thrones which had almost brought the Seven Kingdoms to the edge of complete destruction. The rider of Tessarion had known and in private he had not hidden his unhappiness.

Now it appeared that one of these mistakes had been greater than he thought...and he had more headaches and unhappiness to feel.

The Green King had not liked Lord Harrold Bracken at all, but he had thought the man would be intelligent enough to rebuild his House, play dead in order to decrease the vigilance of the Black spies and wait until the snow melted and the roads became practicable.

It was not difficult to understand but he had been sure to write it in big and simple words when he sent his orders to the Noble Houses of the Riverlands frontier. Do not wage war in winter. Do not start any raids. Do your best to rebuild the fortunes of your new lands and let the population grow to numbers approaching those of 125 after Conquest.

Either someone had modified his messages, or Lord Harrold Bracken had decided to completely ignore his royal commands. As much as Daeron wanted to believe it was the former, there was no indication it wasn't the latter.

The Lord of Bracken's fort had tried to fulfil his thirst of vengeance at all costs, including the resumption of hostilities and the start of a new war Blacks and Greens couldn't afford.

Lord Bracken had gambled and he had lost. To be honest, every illiterate thief of King's Landing would have been able to predict his failure. The Brackens had no dragons; therefore the only question had been if his cousin the Black Queen was going to massacre his party on a snowy plain or she was going to torch Bracken's Fort while he was in it.

"Lord Harrold Bracken, may the Father judge him harshly, chose treachery over the loyalty oaths he swore to House Targaryen," he announced to the crowd waiting for his decisions in the throne room. Despite the end of the dark atmosphere with dragon skulls and bloody tapestries, it was hard to watch the expressions of his subjects at this distance. Aegon the Conqueror's work was evidently not practical at all for many things.

"Let it be known that Lord Harrold Bracken actions betrayed the word and the treaties agreed by the Iron Throne. For the ignoble murders he committed or ordered, it is the decision of the Crown that Lord Harrold Bracken is denied all his titles, honours, privileged and inheritances he was entitled by our laws."

Daeron would have loved to do more, perhaps beheading the man himself, but alas according all the spies of his Master of Whisperers, the fool had perished in dragonfire and even showing his head on a pike was no longer possible. The advisors, sellswords and weapon-sellers who by greed or spite had plunged their hands in this river of hate had shared Lord Bracken's fate or had already met the axe of Royal Justice.

"Ser Harys Bracken," the last surviving member of the Riverlands Noble House advanced. If he had to be honest, Daeron would love to banish him on the other side of the Narrow Sea or to the Wall. But there were politics and the Bracken knight had by Larys Strong's reports the man had genuinely try to warn him. Too late, but he had tried, unlike certain Lords. "Your loyalty to the Crown has been noted and you will be the new Lord of Bracken's Fort and its lands."

Said lands were going to be reduced by a mill and three hamlets, but there was no reason to tell it in front of the court.

"Your Grace is generous. House Bracken's loyalty will not be in doubt ever again."

"A pleasant vow for the Kingdoms," Daeron replied, appreciating the newly-elevated Lord Bracken had understood there would be no second chances. This entire affair had cost a lot to the treasury: many Black harbours had raised unexplainably their taxes for several days, a few merchants had seen their hulls 'borrowed' for a fortnight or two and he had been forced to reinforce some garrisons when the last batch of levies was not ready to guard anything more dangerous than sheep.

"These regrettable events settled, we must speak of several problems plaguing Oldtown..."


End file.
